Dodging is the term used to describe reducing the amount of exposure on the paper that is under the enlarger. Dodging certain areas will lighten the tones and become brighter than the area around it. If you look at the headlamps of the Vintage car, you will notice that the lights have much more detail in the final image than the third image.
This was all down to dodging the area of the lights to reduce the exposure in that particular area of the paper; it takes some experimenting to find the correct length of time to dodge (15 seconds in this instance). Dodging is undertaken during the initial exposure of the paper in the enlarger. You will also notice the number plate was completely blacked out in the second and third image because it was in a shadow area.
The over all exposure time for the number plate was only 15 seconds (on a 75 second overall exposure) so I had to dodge the area for 50 seconds altogether. The dodging technique is done using small black pieces of card or other materials on the end of a long piece of wire. An example of dodging tools is shown here.
Burning:Burning is the opposite of Dodging where it is actually exposing an area for longer than the overall exposure time.
Burning is useful for bringing detail into areas such as the sky and shiny areas like chrome. In the same group of vintage car images, you will see the first and second images have no sky detail; I gradually worked on the sky, experimenting on various burning times. The final burning in time for the sky on the vintage car image was 2 minutes and 30 seconds on top of the 75-second exposure time.
Dan has been writing articles for nearly 4 years. Come visit his latest website
over at http://swimmingpoolsaboveground.info/
which helps people find the best Materials and Techniques for Swimming Pools and information
they are looking for Home Renovation.
Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/photography-articles/reducing-the-amount-of-exposure-1270995.html
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.