HCB

[saminad@amoco.saclay.cea.fr (Laurent SAMINADAYAR)]

Hello!
Here is my experience with George Fevre. First of all, some history: George 
Fevre entered at Pictorial Service (now called "Picto") in 1951. At this 
time, it was quite difficult to find a good pro lab in Paris; I think Picto 
was the first one. Also, there was something like three people who worked at 
Picto: Gassmann (who founded the lab) George, and maybe one or two 
assistants. Most of Magnum photographers used to go to Picto: Gisele Freund, 
Marc Riboud, Joseph Koudelka, and of course HCB. George told me last week (I 
had a diner with him to discuss about the printings he is supposed to make 
for my exhibition) that Koudelka did not pay his printings for years: 
Gassman told him: you will pay when you will be famous. He is now famous...
All these guys (and especially Koudelka and HCB) are very hard-to please 
with their printings. One day, Koudelka refused a printing because a straw 
was to dark! Although they don't practice darkroom themselves, they want the 
best for their printings. Personnally, I think they are right. Koudelka is 
rhe most difficult to please because his negative are very badly exposed. 
George has no special technique to make his print; only some little trik, 
like never under-developped the paper, not fix it to much (2mn) and wash it 
a lot (a couple of hours). He likes a lot the Omega enlarger, and also the 
Leitz (the Omega is more soft). He uses mainly these enlargers, depending on 
the negative. Usually, he works with the Ilford Multigrade Fiber Base 1K, 
and sometimes with the Kodak Prstige, but he says that this last one is very 
difficult to pose, and keeps the printings at constant temperature and 
constant hydrometry. HCB uses a sort of safe box to prevent his negatives 
from fire and water. He has something like 17000 36 exposures rolls, all in 
24x36. He did so after having dreamed that all his negatives were destroyed 
in fire! HCB currently uses the Kodak TRI-X film, and George says that it 
should be slightly under-exposed in order to have all the grey scale.
Here is the philosophy of George about printings: as Gary noticed, HCB's 
printings have a very rich range of middle grey. For George, the key word of 
printing is "natural light". The purpose of printing is to re-create the 
light as it was during the shot. Nothing more, nothing less. He does not 
like the "modern" way of printing, very contrasted, very dark; he says that 
the printers have been printing too contrasted and too dark for a decade. A 
good print must have all the range from pure white to pure black, and not 
only white and black. Technically, this way of doing is not very difficult: 
you pose your paper for the main subject, in a way that it seems to be 
highlighted like during the shot. Then, with your hands (and only your 
hands), you must retain and pushed everything that is under or over exopsed. 
But the point is not to be lazy: expose your subject exaxtly as it was, and 
then you have still a lot of work: you can have 10 or 15 things to push 
(candle, sky, faces, hairs, hands...). In one of my printings, he pushed the 
sockets and the hankerchief of a guy on my photo (have you ever seen such a 
white sockets? he told me). Generally, he proposes you 4 or 5 different 
versions of your picture, and you can choose. It is a very long and 
difficult job: there are maybe 10 printers like George in France.
I hope you enjoyed this little story. Send me an E mail if you want some 
more details (I'm sure I forgot a lot of things!).
I'm leaving for my WE.
Best Regards.
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Laurent SAMINADAYAR
DSM/DRECAM/SPEC
Orme des Merisiers
CEA/Saclay
91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex FRANCE
E-Mail: saminad@amoco.saclay.cea.fr
Phone: +33-1 69 08 75 47
Fax: +33-1 69 08 87 86
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7, Rue Decres
75014 PARIS-FRANCE
Phone: + 33-1 40 44 86 17

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