PHOTOGRAPHY BLACK & WHITE PRINTING In black & white Printer to the stars,Robin Bell is a traditionalist.And having spent 35 years perfecting his darkroom skills,he’shappy to state that it’sbetter than digital WORDS Ailsa McWhinnie NORMAN PARKINSON

ATCHING ROBIN BELL some 120 of Bell’s favourite images he’s Each image has a very specific reason at work in the darkroom has printed over the past three and a half for its inclusion, often more personal W more in common with decades. That’s quite a momentous than aesthetic. Take the Norman observing a dancer than a black & white research task. “Yes,” agrees Bell. “It took Parkinson portrait of The Beatles, for printer. In the red gloom, his hands me maybe… five minutes?” example, which was taken at a time caress the air above the paper, He laughs, and admits to having a when Bell was a member of the Fab instinctively interpreting the reversed photographic memory when it comes to Four’s fan club. He dressed like them tones that are projected onto the images that have struck him, and gone and sported the same haircut. “One day, baseboard. It’s a skill that has been honed on to stand the test of time. “The actual my father – who worked in publishing over a period of 35 years, many of which compilation was probably 90 per cent he has spent printing for the likes of done within an hour,” he says. “Some The Beatles, 1963, by Norman Parkinson.“When I Terry O’Neill, Norman Parkinson, guys appeared once with a roll of film, came to print for Parks, this image was among those Terence Donovan and Linda McCartney. which just happened to have a fantastic I produced under his watchful supervision.” Now, to celebrate his 60th birthday, image on it, and I’ve remembered it and Brigitte Bardot by Terry O’Neill.“This picture of ER O’NEILL TERRY the Independent Photographers’ Gallery picked it out, so the exhibition is Bardot recently re-emerged from O’Neill’s fantastic in Battle, East Sussex is hosting an everyone from amateurs to long-standing archive and immediately became a hot favourite.” exhibition, entitled Silver Footprint, of clients. It’s very democratic.”

44 PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER 45 PHOTOGRAPHY BLACK & WHITE PRINTING OMNPARKINSON NORMAN

Cardin hat over Paris, 1960, by Norman Parkinson ”Apparently, having taken this photo, Parks was arrested for flying over Paris in this helicopter. All in the name of fashion.”

– came home with a print of that Beatles Bell describes his ‘real education’ as picture, which ‘Parks’ had signed for “I impart a starting when he met Joe Andrews – or him. He gave it to my sister!” ‘Gypsy Joe’ – of Joe’s Basement fame. By To this day, Bell is incredulous. “But this time it was the late 1970s, and the then, 30 years later, Parks came round personal work available seemed infinite. It was with some pictures to print, one of Andrews’ work ethic that impressed Bell which was that Beatles shot. So the interpretation so greatly, and which remains with him personal, parental connections, and until this day. “It was about getting the musical and cultural connections all of an image” job done, no matter what it took – even provide a really good reason for if it meant staying up until two or three including that picture in the exhibition.” didn’t really have a clue about nuances o’clock in the morning to finish it.” Before he exposed his first print, Bell either. It was just a case of getting 25 Crucial to Bell’s development as a had something of a colourful life. Railing 8x6in plastic-coated packshots out for a printer was reaching the stage where the against the authority of the school press release. It was never about fine art.” technique side of things became second system led him to leave early and, Despite how evidence might suggest nature. Like a tennis player who doesn’t although he was sent to a crammer (also the contrary, Bell is a surprisingly shy have to think about their grip of the attended by Martin Amis) he didn’t individual. This meant, however, that racket, Bell only has to glance at a bother turning up for his French and forging a career in the darkroom, while negative to know what its grade and base German A levels, because “it was the photographers he worked for exposure is. And it’s not a rough estimate Holland Park in 1967, and would you schmoozed the art directors and clients, – it’s bang on, every time. have wanted to study with all that going suited him down to the ground. And, in Thanks to this burgeoning skill, Bell’s on?” A brief stint training to be a chef spite of the numbers of photographers first major breakthrough in terms of followed, as did a trip to Spain, where he who have entrusted him with their providing fine-art printing occurred worked in bars and discos, and slept in a precious negatives over the years, when he gained photographer Clive local graveyard. He finally returned knowing he will interpret them in a way Arrowsmith as a client. Another home to England via a six-month stretch that hits just the right note, he still fortuitous episode came in the form of in a Swedish prison (“the inevitable displays hints of self-doubt. “I almost feel Prince Andrew’s budding interest in cannabis”), and ended up sharing a flat like I’m borrowing it,” he concedes. “I’m photography. The fourth in line to the with his sister and two of her fellow borrowing this ‘gift’, and any time now throne didn’t come to Bell for his black students – one of whom introduced him it’s going to get whipped away from me. & white printing – but he did frequent to a photographer. He ended up working “I know that there are a lot of printers Gene Nocon’s darkroom, which was for him and, because nearly all who are better than me,” he continues, nearby. “Gene was a brilliant printer, a photographers in those days had their in a matter-of-fact but self-effacing great expert – and a really nice guy. But own darkrooms, Bell took his first steps manner that might appear artificial in the whole thing started pissing off his into the world of printing. some, but comes across as entirely regular clients, because the security “I was doing it without really having a genuine in Bell’s case. With a twinkle in guards wouldn’t let them through the clue about the nuances,” he admits. “But his eye, he adds, “I’m not giving them door when Prince Andrew was there. It I suspect the guys I was printing for free press, but they know who they are!” was a great source of work,” he smiles,

PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER 47 PHOTOGRAPHY BLACK & WHITE PRINTING II HOLMOYVIK EIRIK

Kannesteinen,Vagsoy, 2004 by Eirik Holmoyvik. Described by Bell as“photographic perfection”.

“because, on the recommendation of Saatchi. I shudder to think what they of life may have been diminished Clive, people like Alistair Morrison and must look like now, as the fix would financially, certainly creatively it has been Terence Donovan came to me.” have been exhausted very quickly, and enhanced enormously because digital has While, inevitably, Bell has had to ride they weren’t exactly toned in selenium – taken all the dross work away. My work the digital storm in recent years, the but I had to hit all of them first time.” now means I deal in tonal qualities, changes it has wrought on the way he Nowadays, however, any sort of mass meaningful depth – and I’m imparting a works are more positive than negative. churning-out of prints is carried out personal interpretation of the image He describes one period during the digitally, which frees up Bell to which is, I hope, my signature.” 1980s as being “like a conveyor belt” in concentrate on the more considered side In the realm of the black & white terms of his output and workload. This of the work he loves – producing prints printer, however, personal interpretation was after he had left the umbrella of Joe’s for photographers’ archives, portfolios isn’t everything – something Bell is only Basement and had set up on his own – and exhibitions. This suits him just fine, too happy to concede. “Every single having taken the majority of his clients and you won’t hear him wailing about client is different, and their expectations with him. “I once had to get 80 20x16in the fact that things ain’t what they used are different. Some have printed the prints out in an afternoon,” he recalls. “It to be. “In a way, digital has done me an work themselves already, so have a set was a Terence Donovan shoot for enormous favour – although my quality idea of how that picture should look.

PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER 49 PHOTOGRAPHY BLACK & WHITE PRINTING IO ROBERTS SIMON

“The Sunday Times Magazine has been a great source of work for me.I remembered this story about ‘Snowbirds’by Simon Roberts.This is a holiday camp in Florida for ol’folks from the colder northern states of the USA.These guys evidently know how to enjoy the latter parts of their lives – at least while at camp.It could only happen in the States, couldn’t it?!”

But most negatives speak for themselves.” fundamental part of the photographer’s hard to imagine him doing anything Bell is thinking in particular of two education. “Nowadays fewer and fewer else. It’s a subject he stumbles over, too. bodies of work he is currently printing. people know what a print is – what “Do you know how grateful I am that I The first is for music photographer quality is. I know digital printing is of a did discover this?” he says, almost Kevin Cummins, and is all 1980s grit, peerless quality, but it’s a different awestruck. “I can’t imagine what else I grain and contrast, while the second is animal. Those things are being lost to us could be good at. I may well have been a for an exhibition of Lee Miller’s war now, and there’s a kind of soul missing in painter and decorator, or perhaps a lorry photography. “These will be the the aspects of life where the only driver. And as for training to be a chef – optimum quiet, tonal prints, with all the criterion is speed, where you want to get who’d want to work in a kitchen? I’d information in there – it’s not about the thing done and dusted and out. I’ve much rather work in a small, smelly, finding drama that doesn’t exist.” yet to hear someone say that a digital chemical-ridden darkroom! The added challenge is that Bell’s print has soul. “Or perhaps I could have been in a prints have to match those of Carole “I’m not going to do the PC thing and band, but I’d have had to be the rhythm Callow, who is the printer for the Lee say they’re just different – I think black guitarist in the background – someone Miller archive. “She has a beautiful way & white printing is better. I’m going to who has rock star pretensions but doesn’t of printing, so I try to think what she sound really old-fashioned, but there’s a like the spotlight.” And what better would do – to the point where, when mellowness to the black & white print, analogy for Bell’s life and success as a she and I print half an exhibition each, because there’s not the same obsession black & white printer could there be? we can’t really tell whose is whose.” with cleaning things up, correcting ‘life’, It is this variation in approaches that, deleting ‘faults’ and wiping things out G Silver Footprint is at the Independent for Bell, cements his belief in the silver simply because they don’t suit.” Photographers’ Gallery, Battle, East Sussex gelatin black & white print, but he Hearing Bell speak so passionately from 12 May until 20 June. For more expresses regret that it isn’t still a about the darkroom printing process, it’s information, visit www.ipgbattle.com.

PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER 51