As mentioned in a previous article, there are two steps to photography: Production and post-production which correspond to Ansel Adam’s iconic books The Negative and The Print. The output of production is the negative, which is input to post-production. (The is really another step which precedes production called pre-production which involves all the planning and preparation necessary for the production phase.)
Who does what step has evolved over the history of photography. I imagine back in the early days of glass plates, the photographer did everything, even mixing his own batch of chemicals from the chemist. It is driven by the available technology.
In photography school, we did both steps. We shot on either black and white or color negative film using 35mm, 2-1/4 and 4×5 film formats. We processed the negatives in the lab, both black and white and C-41 for color. Negatives were retouched on the Adams Retouching Machine with pencils and brushes. We exposed prints in the darkroom and used the school’s continuous-feed print processor to finish them. The print processor was about 20 feet long and we fed prints in from a darkroom. Finished prints came out the other end and Dry-to-dry was a only couple of minutes. Then we dust-spotted our final prints and heat-mounted on mounting board.
Once out of school, graduates went either to a photo-finishing lab or to a photo studio. Most went to a photography studio or started their own business. Fewer ended up working in a lab.
My first studio did retail work like portraits and weddings. Portraits and wedding formals were shot on medium format color negative film. I recall using Fuji Reala and Kodak. We also offered “Glamour Shots” style pictures for young aspiring models. Wedding candids were shot on 35mm negative. I also shot actors headshots on 35mm B&W Plus-X and later TMAX-100 when that came out. But all the processing and printing was done by the lab. Once I was out of school I rarely ever touched chemicals again.
Then I wanted to shoot for publication. Printed magazines required 35mm chromes. So I started shooting mostly on 35mm slide film which was also processed by the lab. Either E-6 or Kodachrome. I mostly shot Fuji slide film which is E-6. My deliverable was slide pages–20 slides to the page. I was primarily shooting photosets and pictorials, so I didn’t deliver just one image but 100 or maybe 160 or more from one photoshoot. My job was to deliver slides that was as close to perfectly exposed as possible. Not plus or minus one stop but spot on. Cropped correctly in the camera, in-focus, well-lit and ready to go. I had to look great on a light table under the eye loupe.
The slides went to a pre-press house that scanned them on a drum scanner and prep’d for the printer. Sometimes the slides were used directly in a multimedia slide show. The camera original was not usually projected, but a slide dupe.
So up until this point, as a photographer my contribution was the camera original negative or chrome. Somebody else, either the finishing lab or pre-press house, did the rest.
In part 2 I will write about when this arrangement seemed to change, at least for me.
