builders photos

[NW Mailing List]

Just as a continuation of this topic, the N&W on occasion, had some frames of canvas on wood that were placed behind the locomotives as an aid to retouching, but I think I only saw evidence of it being used once or twice in the files. I don't ever recall seeing the N&W paint anything with a gray paint for photo purposes. Even though the photo lab was initially part of Motive Power Department. Usually it was a flat lighting kind of day when it was done.

The negatives that had been opaqued in the N&W photo lab terms were called "blocked negatives" on the negative sleeves. They were always (to my viewing) an 8x10 negative, and carefully hand opaqued. Usually only part of the negative was opaqued, and the rest was covered with black thin paper to provide the rest of the mask.

I have a print of an A, apparently not scanned yet, and don't remember the number, made at Williamson, that the opaquing was started, the entire locomotive and tender have a fine line all the way around it, but the rest of the opaquing was never done.

As Mike pointed out, this was a very exacting skill. In addition, I've seen other negatives that have had black smoke lightened by some form of thin painted mask directly on the negative. I never thought to ask any of the photographers exactly how that was done. But many of the company photos used for publicity you see rarely had much smoke, even then it was frowned upon.

Not every photo you see was an opaqued negative, but when items were going to a printed project. Richard will remember this as well, they were masked off with a material called amberlith which was a very thin film of orange emulsion on a thin acetate base. It was tape hinged onto a print, and a careful person would actually use a very fine xacto knife, and cut through the emulsion only around the masked item. 

Then the areas that were to be blocked in the final print are were peeled off the acetate base, leaving an orange mask over top of the photo. Usually registration marks were also placed on the photo. That would taken to the print shop stat camera, a halftone negative was shot of the photo with the overlay turned back, then the overlay was flipped back down, a sheet of white paper was inserted between the print and the overlay, and another negative was made. The orange would photograph as black, or a clear area in the negative, the two negatives were registered together and put in place, providing a view of the car, locomotive or what ever that cut the background out.

There was another material called Rubylith, which was a much thicker emulsion, and much harder to see through, and if it was a simple mask job, it was used as it was a bit more light tight, but I only rarely saw it used over detailed prints.

Now, we do it all on the computer, truly amazing.

Ken Miller

On Feb 26, 2015, at 8:28 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List wrote:

> I saw an article many years ago about the company photographer at Lima. They had a particular place they used for builders photos and they would put huge panels behind the engines for the photos. I think they were canvas and plywood. The final detail work was done in the darkroom like Richard said. Sometimes they also painted the engines in a gray wash paint to help bring out details.
> 
> Roger Huber
> Deer Creek Locomotive Works
> 
> 
> 
> From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
> To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> 
> Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2015 6:39 AM
> Subject: Re: builders photos
> 
> Mike,
>  
> The backgrounds were masked out using a very fine paint brush, and steady hand, on the negatives so when they were printed, these masked areas remained white. The liquid we used for this was called opaque fluid. These days we use Photoshop for the same technique.
>  
> I have attached a modern sample.
>  
> Thanks,
>  
> Richard D. Shell
> ShellScale Decals
>  
> Moderator:
>  http://nwhs.org/mailinglist/2015/20150226.ho167photo.jpg
> 
> In a message dated 2/25/2015 10:31:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org writes:
> 
> 
> How did they take photos of the steam locomotives with an apparent white background?
> Thanks,
> Mike Shockley
> 
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