Response to High key forest images

This question depends a lot on what format film you are using. If you are using roll film then development schemes such as pulling the development may not be appropriate depending on what other scenes you have on that roll of film. Remember that whatever development scheme you use is for the entire roll so you may not want to do this to the entire roll. But film is cheap so in order to do this properly you may shoot the scene and then rewind the film and only develope that roll as high key. If you are using sheet film, then if you calibrated the exposure and development properly, it is a straight forward exercize in zone system control. Place the shadow values at zone 5 and give 30% more exposure to compensate for the shortened development time. Then develope for your highlights at zone 7 or 8 depending on where you want your high values to fall in the print. Film can hold about 15 stops of information but the problem lays in the paper which can hold 5 stops only. Azo can hold more but it is a contact printing paper so with smaller film formats this is not an option. Neither is selenium toning the neg which will just increase the contrast in the neg which you don't want in a high key image. And that brings up another question. When you refer to high key (zone 5-7 or 8) are you actually referring to high key or are you referring to scenes that are full tonal range scenes? A high key subject normally refers to a subject with a contrast range which starts at zone 5 or 6 and extends 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 zones higher. This usually entails great effort to ensure that the highlight values have good separation and are at or near the highlight separation limits of the paper you are using. Hope this makes it clear. Any other questions feel free to email me. James

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