Dodging or burning?

[Julian Elliott]

Morning all

As a child of the digital age, I've never had the wonders of the darkroom.

At the moment, I'm in the middle of writing something about grads and was wondering if someone could give me some confirmation on dodging or burning.

In essence, when you put a grad in front of the lens to hold back the sky are you dodging it in or burning it in? I'm thinking the latter.

Anyone?

Thanks

Jools

[joolsb]

'Burning' increases the amount of light reaching the paper (making the print darker) and 'dodging' holds back the light (leading to a lighter print in the area being 'dodged').

So, in the sense of the appearance of the final image, burning would be the equivalent of using a grad although, in terms of what's actually happening to the light, dodging is more appropriate.

To be honest, I'd avoid drawing parallels between what happens during traditional printing and what happens at exposure time. It can only lead to confusion, imo.

[Neil Barnes]

Jools is right. Dodging and burning happens only at the printing stage.

What you're doing at exposure is 'filtering'... although there is the technique of using a really long exposure on, say, a cathedral interior, and illuminating areas of interest with a hand-held flash.

Neil

[Julian Elliott]

Thanks for that. I came to the same sort of ideas in my head that my namesake said. Just going to go on a whim and put one of them!