Bromide Printing and Enlarging A Practical Guide to the Making of Bromide Prints by Contact and Bromide Enlarging by Daylight and Artificial Light, With the Toning of — Reading Companion

A Voice of Practical Certainty

Tennant writes with an assured, almost conversational authority. He does not hedge: bromide paper “renders the photographer independent of daylight and weather,” and its manipulation “is extremely simple.” When describing exposure, he gives a concrete starting point—“ten seconds”—and walks through a test-strip procedure step by step. The prose is dense with imperative verbs: “place,” “adjust,” “cap,” “pin.” This is not a theoretical treatise but a workshop companion. Even when acknowledging variables—light, negative, lens, developer—he offers a rule of thumb: if the paper takes half the proper time to develop, halve the next exposure. The voice assumes the reader will make mistakes and learn by doing, which gives the text a patient, iterative quality.

Rhythm of Exposure and Development

The book’s pacing mirrors the darkroom process: deliberate, repetitive, and cumulative. Tennant returns to the concept of test-strips in multiple chapters, each time refining the method. In the enlarging section, he describes a three-step exposure test—shading two-thirds of the strip for five seconds, then one-third, then none—to produce three exposure times on a single strip. This incremental approach builds a rhythm of trial and measurement. The language itself becomes a kind of timing device: short sentences for actions, longer ones for explanations. The effect is that the reader internalizes a cadence of exposure, development, and evaluation, which is exactly the skill the book aims to teach.

The Darkroom as a System of Controls

Tennant treats the darkroom as a network of adjustable factors: light source, lens aperture, negative density, paper sensitivity, developer temperature, and development time. He advises stopping down a low-priced lens to f/11.3 or f/16 to avoid spherical aberration, but notes that this increases exposure time and allows local shading. He warns against routine stopping-down because it “interferes with one’s judgment in calculating exposures.” This reveals a core philosophy: the photographer should learn to read the image on the screen, not rely on tables. The high lights and shadows must both be considered. The system is flexible, but the photographer’s judgment is the final control. Tennant’s emphasis on practical experience over calculation gives the manual a lasting pedagogical value.

Tennant’s manual rewards a slow, attentive reading—ideally with a printing frame or enlarger at hand. The test-strip method he advocates is as much a habit of mind as a technique: it trains the eye to see exposure as a range, not a fixed number. Readers new to darkroom work may find the density of instruction daunting, but the book’s structure allows for dipping into specific chapters as needed. For those already familiar with development, the sections on toning and reduction offer less common procedures worth exploring. The voice throughout is that of a teacher who expects you to get your hands wet.