Print Image ~ Portraiture Choices

I have written on photographers who's prints become a format, each image a mirror of another. I am not carping, nor attempting to denigrate the practice. It just isn't my style. I do not always want eight distinct tonal zones in each image, nor do I print in the same stylistic method, i.e. using the same developer & development time, paper,  or even within one medium. I look at each image as having its own character, and feel. Sometimes that means constricting the tonal range to only show that range of tonality as to showcase the image in the "light" it was intended.

Anyone who has visited a museum, or if they are lucky enough, a gallery, that hangs platinum/palladium prints, will see that not many of them show a full range print from absolute black to blank white. I have pondered this too many times to mention, but I have seen hundreds of such Pt/Pd prints. What I took away from this is simple that the photographer developed these large negatives and printed them as they chose for their personal tastes. I do not second guess another photographer's choices. I merely attempt to understand their thinking, their artistic expression and accept it for what it is, not how I would make it different.

Each photographer has their own aesthetic sense of what their photographic images should look like, and it is this personal sense of image that makes each photographer unique. My thought for this is for each photographer to find this personal expression through the controls of their negatives & printing medium to be able to print the desired expression. Knowing the controls of the negative such that burning and dodging and 'photo fixes' are not needed. As many of you know, that is possible.

Whereas this photographer is working diligently to arrive at a point where I will be printing directly in platinum/palladium, arriving at a print that mimics the Pt/Pd was something I worked hard at those many years ago. The print below was an example of working towards a warmed toned print with the warm toned visual feel of a hand coated print. The image doesn't represent Zone 7 or Zone 8 in a major way. The portrait lighting was soft and subdued, from a single source, the only window in the room, some distance away. I liked that and replicated it in the image.

Century Graflex 6x9 Camera;
Negative; FP-4 (ISO rated 80) Developed Beutler 105 - 1:10 8-min

Silver Gelatin Print ~ "Mark Pope"
1985 ~ 6"x9" ~ Unique
Eugene, Oregon (his apartment)