A special technique makes for special pictures

I may have grumbled about Irving Penn’s love of darkroom technique before, but there’s no denying the originality of the results. So it’s no surprise that some early pictures of his, taken with a Leica, and published in Leica Fotografie 2/1955, have stuck in my mind. Penn was mostly using large format and 6×6 film in those days, but he was not past messing about with 35mm film on his vacation.

But he did not stop at just taking snaps. These were made on color film with the originals cropped and rephotographed in monochrome and printed with a point light source condenser enlarger. It’s worth adding that most 35mm and 6×6 film users enlarged their negatives using diffuser enlargers, meaning that the light source was a coated neon bulb which naturally softened the image, obviating the worst of the grain. They were also inexpensive, thanks to the simple optical design. By contrast, the high intensity, uncoated, focused, point light source Penn used in his costly professional enlarger (complete with an exhaust fan to stop things melting) magnified every detail and line in the print, an effect Penn used to startlingly good effect in these pictures from the Arabian desert.

Note the etched appearance and the startling effect of the stripes on the running boys’ clothing. No less striking is the composition here, with everything but the main subject sharp – shades of Parkinson’s red hat picture. Or was it the other way around? Yes, I rather think Penn got there first.

I have never seen these reproduced elsewhere and hope you share my excitement on seeing these images. The original magazine is now over fifty years old, so please pardon the yellowing and fading.