Mezzotint vs New Objectivity Photography

メゾチント / 新即物主義写真

Mezzotint comes from Intaglio Printing and New Objectivity Photography from Photography Movements. One is technique and the other style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.

Mezzotint

Mezzotint — ジョン・マーティンのメゾチント — Wikimedia Commons / CC0Mezzotint — S・W・レノルズのメゾチント — Wikimedia Commons / CC0Mezzotint — ジョシュア・レノルズ肖像のメゾチント — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

The whole plate is roughened to hold a deep black, then burnished back to raise the lights, so that the image emerges from soft velvet darkness instead of from lines.

New Objectivity Photography

New Objectivity Photography — ブロスフェルトの植物写真 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainNew Objectivity Photography — レンガー＝パッチュ『鉄と鋼』装丁 1931 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainNew Objectivity Photography — ブロスフェルト『芸術の原形』1928より — Wikimedia Commons / CC0

Steps back from sentiment and records the structure of people and things coolly: sharp focus, frontality, typology.

MezzotintNew Objectivity Photography
Era1640s–1920s–1930s
FamilyIntaglio PrintingPhotography Movements
KindTechniqueStyle
CuesVelvet blacks / From dark to light / Soft gradation / Burnished lightSharp focus / Frontality / Repetition and types / Material detail
Best used forPortraits and still lifes where the subject emerges out of deep darkness · Frontispieces and covers built around night and a single light sourcePhotographing trades or buildings under one condition to make them comparable · Showing the detail of a product or a part precisely and without sentiment
TypeKeep lettering out of the shadows and small on the burnished sideNo headlines, only the subject name and conditions in one fixed format
CompositionDecide where light falls first and give darkness most of the plateFrontal, level, centered, with the same background every time
MaterialRock the whole plate, burnish back the lights, watch black fade across the editionDeep depth of field, even overcast light, fine grained printing
CautionOpening too many lights starves the deep black the method depends on, so treat this as raising light out of a roughened plate rather than as a black gradient effect.One frame is no typology, and without matched conditions it ends as a pile of expressionless pictures. Do not trust the pose of objectivity, and read the bias that classification and viewpoint produce.

Put these two together

Intaglio Printing ／ Photography Movements

IndexStyle