That's Pushing It!

This post is about push-processing, a technique that will be very familiar to most experienced photographers. However, I had never tried it before, so you will have to excuse my excitement. If you are in the "experienced" category and know all about push-processing, you may want to skip the rest of this article. If not, then read on.

Someday I really would like to combine my music and photography interests by photographing live performances around town. My preference would be to shoot at small intimate venues like clubs and to use black and white. I had the chance to do this recently when an up-and-coming country music trio from Nashville called Campbell Station came to play a show at Songbirds in Chattanooga. Songbirds is a guitar museum housed in an old railroad station that has been converted into a hotel and entertainment complex. Songbirds has a small performance venue amongst the hundreds of vintage and rare guitars on display, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to practice my photography skills, especially since one of the members of Campbell Station is a former music student of mine.

The problem shooting musical performances, of course, is low light, and unless you are using ultra fast film (like Kodak TMaxx 3200), you really only have one option is to push-process your film. (You could, of course, use a flash, but that will get you kicked out of most venues today.) I had never push-processed film before, so I was a little anxious about trying for the first time on such a good photo opportunity. However, after doing a little research, I found that it is really quite easy, and I went for it.

Push-processing is a two-step process that essentially causes your film to think it is faster (more sensitive to light) than it really is. The first step takes place when you shoot the film. Instead of setting the film speed on your camera to box speed (the speed indicated on the box), you set your camera to a higher film speed.  For example, I chose to use Kodak Tri-X 400 film, but instead of shooting it at 400, I shot it two stops faster at 1600,  allowing me to use a fast-enough shutter speed to get sharp images of the group.  Of course, by doing this I was underexposing the film by two stops. That is what makes step two necessary.

Step two is two extend the developing time when the film is processed. Kodak publishes developing information for their black and white films online, so I found the technical data sheet for Tri-X (http://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/prod/files/files/resources/f4017_TriX.pdf) and found that my developing time for 1600 (using D-76 1:1 at 68º) is 13 1/4 minutes instead of the usual 9 3/4 minutes. The other processing steps, stop bath and fixer), remain the same as usual.

Push-processing does have its costs, however. While you gain exposure latitude with push-processing, you also lose some image "quality." I put the word quality in quotes because the loss in image quality when using push-processing amounts to higher grain and contrast, and many photographers (including myself) like the increased amounts of grain and contrast in certain situations such as concert photography. I really like the way the Campbell Stations photos came out. I definitely will be using push-processing again in similar situations. It's great for me to know that I can use Tri-X 400 this way and count on getting images of which I am proud.

All of the photos below were shot with Uncle Jonesy's Minolta SR-T202 on Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed to 1600 and home processed.