Enlarged Negatives: Theory & Practice

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The vast majority of antique and/or alternate photographic printing processes are contact printing processes, so the negative must be as large as the print we wish to make. The emulsions and sensitizers used are very slow compared to normal silver gelatine developing out printing papers and are also usually insensitive to visible light and must be exposed to sources rich in ultraviolet radiation, so conventional enlarging is impractical.

The many alternative processes have different requirements for the negatives used and it is rare to have one negative work for a number of different printmaking processes so becoming a skilled negative maker is essential. The only evidence of your visual/emotional experience is the print you make validating this experience, so we owe it to ourselves to become the best printmakers that we can . Since the print qualities are dictated by the qualities of the negative, the importance of making the best negative possible cannot be overlooked.

Although there are several methods for making enlarged negatives (direct duping film, rephotographing a print with a larger camera, reversal processing of negative film, etc.) the method which affords us the most control is to first make a film interpositive and then use that to generate the enlarged negative. This gives us two opportunities to choose film, adjust contrast and density, to dodge and burn and retouch while getting to the final negative, and sometimes once is just not enough. It can be argued that this method means we are working with a second generation copy with the attendant losses of information, but by generating either the positive or negative through contact the losses are significantly minimized.

The equipment and laboratory used to generate enlarged negatives are the same as used for conventional silver printing but the degree of precision must be elevated, as the materials used are much more sensitive than store bought photo paper, so modifications will have to be made to the working environment. As a bonus, these changes will only improve the efficiency of the lab for all photo work. Because we will be using films, the darkroom becomes analogous to the inside of a camera with us walking around in it, and stray light that we wouldn't notice under bright safelights poses a very real threat for fogging.