Voja Mitrovic, Printer to the Greats (Part I)

The Untold Story of One of the Greatest Printers in Photography

Voja Mitrovic at the Coupole, Montparnasse, Paris, 1993. Photo by Peter Turnley.

By Peter Turnley

This is the untold story of one of the greatest printers of black-and-white photographs in the history of photography—Voja Mitrovic. It is time that this man, who has literally been in the dark since arriving in Paris from Yugoslavia in 1964, be acknowledged for his important part in the history of photography and his collaborations with many of the great photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Voja's story is also the story of the world-renowned photographic laboratory Picto, in Paris, created by Pierre Gassmann in 1950.

You've seen Voja's work without knowing it. He was a longtime printer for Henri Cartier-Bresson, from 1967–1997, and  has made prints for the past thirty years for the great Czech photographer Josef Koudelka. While others also printed H.C.-B.’s photographs, what is so important about the period Voja printed much of his work is that it corresponds to the time when collecting signed photographs first began to take off and change the public’s view of photography collecting and its connection to the art world. Henri Cartier-Bresson was one of the key photographers whose work was bought and collected during that period. It was during the time when Helen Wright was representing H.C.-B.’s prints in the United States where most of his prints were collected. A large number of the signed prints of H.C.-B. on any wall in the world printed from 1967–1997 were made by Voja—this fact is little known. He also printed at various times for many of the world’s other master photographers: Sebastio Salgado, Werner Bischof, René Burri, Marc Riboud, Robert Doisneau, Edouard Boubat, Man Ray, Atget, Helmut Newton, Raymond Depardon, Bruno Barbey, Jean Gaumy, Frederic Brenner, Max Vadukul, and Peter Lindbergh to name a few. I have had the great fortune that Voja has been my printer for the past twenty years. He printed the exhibition and reproduction prints for my books Parisians, McClellan Street, and In Times of War and Peace, and he has made all of my signed prints for collection.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, left, and Josef Koudelka, right, begging Voja Mitrovic not to retire at his retirement party, Picto, Paris, Dec. 22, 1996. Photo by Paolo Nozolino.

I first met Voja (by the way, the "j" in Voja is pronounced like a "y") in June of 1979. It was during my first sojourn of eight months in Paris in 1975 that I heard of the great photographic lab where Cartier-Bresson’s prints were made—Picto. John Morris, then the photo editor of the New York Times and an early and long-time mentor of mine, and the great Czech photographer, Josef Koudelka, who I had met one fall day in the Luxembourg Gardens after he photographed me kissing my then-girlfriend on a park bench, had spoken to me of this great laboratory, a center world-famous for amazing black-and-white printing.

My first visit to Picto was in late winter of 1976, and I will never forget the sight of men and women in their white coats looking over and discussing the tonal values of some Cartier-Bresson prints lying on a table. I had never studied photography—I had always thought from the outset that one’s vision was more a function of knowledge or experience with almost any other aspect or domain of life than photography and cameras, thus I was more interested in studying subjects like languages, history, political science, economics, and art. But from that first sight of H.C.-B.’s prints at Picto, while knowing that my life purpose was to be a photographer, I had a singular determination to come and work at this laboratory and to gain the practical experience of learning to be a great printer.

Picto was the creation of Pierre Gassmann (see my photo at right, taken in Montparnasse, Paris, in 1996), who had left Nazi Germany in 1933 to come to Paris. While working as a young immigrant photographer in Paris before the war and spending time around Montparnasse, Pierre Gassmann had met and become friends with the eventual founders of Magnum, Robert Capa, David Seymour, George Rodger, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, and also with photographers such as Brassai and Gisele Freund. After the war, in 1947, Gassmann put his own photography aside and began to make prints for the Magnum photographers, and then created Picto as a commercial enterprise in 1950. There is likely no one who had more knowledge of and contact with the important members of the world photographic community of the twentieth century than Pierre Gassmann. He was a very important mentor to countless photographers, including me. The famous photography laboratory that he created would intersect with the destiny of multitudes of photographers—and have a profound impact on the destiny of the young Yougoslav, Voja Mitrovic, who arrived in Paris in 1964.

Both Voja and Picto would have a tremendous impact on my own destiny. In June of 1979, after arriving back in Paris, I went to see Pierre Gassmann at Picto and asked for a job as a printer. Pierre, with his tough-love gruff voice, asked me what I knew how to do—and I exaggerated and told him that I was a great printer and knew how to do everything with black-and-white prints. He said to me, "We will see. You will have a three day tryout, and if you aren't as good as you say, you won't get the job." On my first day of my try out, I was given 100 negatives and told to make 8x10-inch prints of each by the end of the day. At 4 p.m., a tall, handsome man with a foreign accent, one of the printers in the lab—Voja—came to my enlarger and asked how it was going. I told him that I had only printed 20 negatives. He said to me, "You will never get this job—give me the negatives." I watched him take the hundred negatives to his enlarger, and in one hour, he printed the remaining 80 negatives, putting each sheet of printing paper in a closed drawer after exposing each negative. At 4:50 pm, he took out 80 sheets of exposed photographic paper and went to the open developing tank. I watched him chain develop all the prints, and one by one put all 80 prints, perfectly printed, into the fixer. At 5:10 p.m. that day, Pierre Gassmann walked into the lab and said, "let’s see how you have done." He put his foot on the foot pedal to light up the fixer tank with bright red light, and went through my 100 prints laying in the fixer-and a few seconds later, looked up and said to me, "you are as good as you said; you are hired!" After Gassmann walked out of the dark room, I took Voja aside, and said, "thank you. I will find a way one day to thank you for this!" He looked at me and said, "I was an immigrant also. I know what it means to need work—we need to help each other!"

While I worked as a printer at Picto in 1979 and 1980, I saw first-hand the amazing work of Voja Mitrovic. After I left Picto, and had finished my graduate degree in international relations at Sciences Po in Paris (where I was a classmate of the current French president Nicolas Sarkozy), I began to assist Robert Doisneau in 1981, and then embarked upon my own career, traveling the world as a photographer. While at Picto, I eventually became a pretty good printer, but knew that I wanted more than anything else to continue being a photographer myself. I was clear about that before ever starting at Picto—but I am sure that my experience as a printer has helped me understand better what I want from prints of my own photographs, and it certainly has helped me appreciate even more the mastership of Voja's prints. I also knew that I didn’t want to spend a life in the dark, and realized early on that I could never be nearly as good a printer as Voja, who has now printed my work for most of the past three decades.

Voja was born in Foca, in Bosnia, Herzegovina, part of the former Yugoslavia, in 1937. His father was killed during the war when he was four years old, and from this early age, he became aware that he would have to work to help his mother and family. He came to photography by accident—his family had a cow, and daily he would deliver a liter of milk to the house of a local photographer named Radmilo Mazic. One day this photographer asked Voja's mother if her son would like to be his photographic apprentice. In Sept., 1953, Voja began to work as Mazic’ apprentice. Mazic had studied photography at a school in Zagreb with teachers from the Ecole de Graphisme of Vienna. It was during this apprenticeship from the age of 14 to 18 that Voja gained extensive knowledge and skills in photography and printing. At the age of 19, he was obliged to do his military service and entered a unit of aviation photography of the Yugoslav Air force. After his military service, Voja worked for five years in a photographic studio in Belgrade where he was involved in all aspects of photography, making photographs, and developing film and making prints.

In September of 1964, Voja and another friend decided to embark upon a trip around the world before getting married and settling down. He arrived at the Paris train station on September 4th, 1964, with one hundred French Francs in his pocket and a backpack full of clothes and sausages—the money being the equivalent then of not more than US$100 now. Voja quickly discovered that with his Yugoslav nationality, it would be difficult to obtain the necessary visas to travel to other countries, and within two days of arriving in Paris, he had already found a job retouching prints at a lab near the Gare du Nord. This first job enabled him to obtain a "carte de sejour" and a work permit, which enabled him to begin to learn the French language.

Two years later, on April 2, 1966, he answered an announcement in a newspaper for a job as a printer at a lab called Picto. When he arrived at Picto, he met Pierre Gassmann and was given a tryout with three other candidates. Gassmann told him that he had been happy with one of his previous printers who was from Yugoslavia, and that he felt that people like him, who came from Central Europe, were good printers and good workers. Voja was hired that day. He worked at Picto for the next thirty years, until his retirement on January 1, 1997.

While there have been several people who have printed for Henri Cartier-Bresson—people such as Georges Fevre, Pierre Gassmann, Philippe Jourdain, Toros, Daniel Risset, and since Voya’s retirement, Daniel Mordac—few people , even in H.C.-B's close entourage, are aware of the role Voja played in printing his photographs over thirty years, most importantly during the time of the “photo boom”, that period of explosive growth in the modern acceptance of photography, of print collecting and photographic exhibitions. Collecting signed prints of photographers began in earnest by a large public in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During this time, Voja Mitrovic printed a significant  number of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s collector prints, book prints, and exhibition prints. While I was at Picto in 1979 and 1980, Cartier-Bresson came to Picto almost every week to sign prints that would be sent to collectors in the United States—and many of these prints were made by Voja. I will never forget H.C.-B.’s frequent visits to the lab—witnessing him sign a print was a powerful sight, like a final conclusive act in a process of great creation—and it instilled in me the sense that a signed collector print is the summit of the photographic art. There was always an amazing spirit of conviviality at the lab between the printers and visiting photographers, and always a tremendous level of pride and respect within the walls of the lab. Everyone was aware that we were all involved with people and a process of artistic creation that was unique and special.

Voja Mitrovic and Peter Turnley, at Picto, Paris, 1994.

This was also a time when an important change took place in the world of printing—the introduction of multi-grade paper and filters, which allowed for a subtler rendition of details in both the shadows and the highlights of prints. It was also a time when the highest quantity of silver was in printing papers. Voja has indicated that there are certain qualities of richness in gray tonal values that he could never achieve with today’s papers, that he was able to obtain in the late 'seventies and early 'eighties. Also, since Voja’s retirement, many people, including myself, have noticed that the later prints of H.C.-B., sometimes became too pale, lacking detail in the highlights. Voja has indicated that this is not the fault of later printers' skills, but mostly because H.C.-B. himself changed in his printing taste a bit, asking for lighter prints in his latest years. He would often say that he didn't want his prints to be "dramatic" in the manner that was popular with many American photographers.

Most anyone who has ever spent any time printing in a darkroom knows the emotional difficulty and joy of making a great print. Josef Koudelka said that Voja has the mind of a computer. While I often saw other great printers at one point or another arrive at a moment of emotional and mental block when they couldn’t achieve a result they wanted with a print, Voja was always the picture of perfect methodical discipline, patience, and consistency. He has explained to me that from early age he knew he would have to work, and he learned quickly that whether he was doing something, or re-doing something, it was still simply work, and he respected that, and he would never become frustrated and emotional about doing something until it was done as well as it could be done.

Peter Turnley

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Pak-Ming Wan: "Peter, That's a wonderful story about both Voja and you. As an ex-pat in Paris, I know first hand how hard it is to restart a life—but restart with just $100 in your pocket and not knowing the language or anyone? And to play that hand and turn it into something as great as he has is something I respect. Inspirational."

Featured Comment by Ken Tanaka: "As an addendum to this wonderful story...

"Those who would like to see quite a large stock of Mr. Mitrovic's work first-hand should make an attempt to see the "Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century" exhibit now at the Art Institute of Chicago.  The show, which originated at MoMA and was curated by Peter Galassi, features the largest and broadest volume of Cartier-Bresson's work (298 prints plus original magazine publications) you'll likely ever see assembled again in your lifetime.

"The show is organized approximately chronologically. So although printers are not noted (but printing is cited and discussed in an early part of the exhibit) the period of Mitrovic's work will be easy to scope, as it covers most of the show.

"If you cannot see the show in Chicago or its future venues, Peter Galassi's accompanying catalog is the next best thing. No, scratch that; it's actually equally valuable, as it presents a wonderfully rich narrative as well as all of the images from the show, beautifully reproduced."

Featured Comment by Bahi: "B&W wet printing is an irresistible combination of science, art, myth and magic. I just loved this story."

Comments

[tal]

What a great read, thank you. Anticipating the next chapter!

[Michael]

This is the kind of person that NEEDS to be interviewed on video. I'd pay US$25 for a DVD in a heartbeat.

Favorite papers, film stocks, photographers, and advice, tips, ideas that he would impart to an apprentice would be more than worth it.

Waiting for part 2.

[Roger Dunham]

What a great story!

[mike]

Talk about a great way to start the morning.

[Andre Moreau]

Hello Mike,

Probably the greatest story ever told on T.O.P.! Amazing and touching.

[Bambang]

amazing story of workmanship. can't wait for the next part of this truly inspiring post.

[Tom Kershaw]

Mike,

Thanks for publishing this article. It is one of the most compelling pieces I've read on 'The Online Photographer'. - would only query a technical point on silver content in photographic papers as this should have no effect on visual density according to ILFORD.

Tom Kershaw

[Tim McDevitt]

Priceless! This is why TOP readers are addicted. Can't wait to read Part II.

[David Bostedo]

"...prints were consistently head and shoulders above that of everyone else"

I really wish I knew what that meant - what makes prints at that level clearly better than everyone else. I seem to find that once prints reach the level of "excellent", they all seem to be pretty equal to me. Different maybe, but all very good. How would one person at a place like Picto where everyone was presumably an outstanding printer, still manage to be clearly better? What makes his prints better? (And would I see it if I had the chance to look at all of the Picto printer's prints? Could I even learn to see it?)

[Mike Johnston]

Tom,
The issue of "silver content" in papers is a long story that I could recount in great detail.

Ironically, the genesis of the story has to do with the heavy metal cadmium, which Agfa quietly removed from Portriga for environmental reasons in the '80s--without telling anyone--changing that emulsion and robbing it of its legendary richness and depth. That's what kicked off the persistent rumor that manufacturers were "skimping on silver."

But let's not get any further into it here, as it's really incidental to this story.

Mike

[Mike Johnston]

David,
If I may answer that (having been a custom exhibition printer myself), often "better" has to do with a) being able to work quickly; b) being able to cope with difficult negatives; c) having unerring judgment as to what a print "needs." (As an aside, Peter told me that when he showed Voja the illustrations he intended to use for this article, on his laptop, Voja ignored their pictorial content and immediately commented on their tonal values.) Thus, it's not so much that you would look at one good print and say that it's head and shoulders over another good print, but that, if you could see one printer's attempt at a negative next to Voja's rendition, that's when you would see the difference.

Peter will go into this issue in more depth in tomorrow's article.

Mike

[Animesh Ray]

Wonderful story. My eyes welled up as I read that bit about your getting the job and what Voja told you afterward...what can I say.

[Hernan Zenteno]

Many thanks for take out of the shadows the job of people that conclude the art work in photography. I feel some nostalgia of the darkroom times. Some months ago a more young photographer told me that he don't pay too much attention to the way their photos are printed. He prefer focus in do the show. Another colleague say to me every time he see me: "the time is coming". He refers about the time i can't no be able to get film. The worst part is he is close. Month to month i have difficult to get good film and if i found some is too much expensive. I remember with love the humble darkrooms i had. This were places to introspective sight, to make love with some girlfriend, to experiment, to discover. The proud and feeling of get good copy in the middle of the night, alone with the music. All the best

[Pete Myers]

I really hope this article will turn into a book---this history needs preservation. Simply amazing!

Pete

[Mikkelsen]

What a wonderful account of friendship, determination, skill, integrity and a great man - I hope you will one day write a book to complement your marvellous photographic production.

[ed hawco]

When I went to see the HCB show at MOMA in New York a few months ago, I was taken aback by the pedestrian quality of some of the prints. But they were the older ones; 8x10s banged out quickly for magazine reproduction. Or perhaps they were just work prints. I'm not sure. Probably a bit of both. But then I'd come upon a series that were clearly "head and shoulders above the rest," including a number of fairly large ones (16x20 maybe?) among which was an exquisite print of "Martine's Legs":

I've long known that HCB did not do his own printing, but I did not know who his printer was. Thanks for the informative article!

[David Bostedo]

Thanks for that info Mike (and of course you can answer - I'd appreciate anyone with some knowledge answering). Often I hear about someone making wonderful prints, and it feels like there must be something I'm missing since many prints look equal in quality to me - even those I've known to be lauded by others. (Although I haven't done a ton of print-looking, so I thought maybe my inexperience was part of the reason.) I've wondered if the expertise is more wrapped up in how to deal with difficult prints, than in the final results of one person over another. Does anyone know of a book or website that talks about exactly what makes a print good? (Beyond "maintaining details in both shadows and highlights" kind of stuff?)

[Francisco Cubas]

Thank you very much to Peter and Mike, this is a story that I always wanted to read. I also had the privilege of learning photography in a darkroom, an amazing, relaxing, magic, sexy place (in spite of the odours).

A teacher and master printer once told me (after watching a HCB exhibition in Mexico) that Henri was in great debt with his printer. For me it was a revelation of how even the work of some of the great masters needs a degree of collaboration.

I'd like to know if it's true that HCB negatives were difficult to print (It is said that he didn't pay much attention to exposure).

I can't wait to read the next part, this made my eyes wet, and I agree with Michael, I will pay for a DVD with Voja Mitrovic in it.

[Paul]

Another wonderful article at TOP, Mike if you keep on this way you may be able to publish a book on all your best posts. I can see a bestseller!
Hernan Zenteno, I hope you are wrong!
By the way Mike, what about a post going into a little more detail about your custom exhibition printing experience or a "Top 10 Tips" for printing in the darkroom?
Anyway can´t wait part II, thanks Peter and Mike!
Paul

[Mani Sitaraman]

This is a beautiful story, beautifully told. We are blessed to have talents such as Voja Mitrovic and Peter Turnley in our midst.

[Derek]

What Tim McDevitt said.... Looking forward to hearing more about what "it" is that sets Voja's work apart as I'm definitely still finding my feet when it comes to B&W prints.

[Mike Johnston]

"I'd like to know if it's true that HCB negatives were difficult to print (It is said that he didn't pay much attention to exposure)"

Francisco,
Tomorrow's post talks about that.

Mike

[charlie]

Excellent Peter.

"(It is said that he didn't pay much attention to exposure)"

I knew I was in good company ;-)

[Zlatko Batistich]

Thanks for this great untold story! I saw the HCB show at MOMA in New York a few months ago and many of the photos were quite beautifully printed.

[Cecelia]

This story made my day - thanks!

[Bron]

Another great post, and another great portrait, of a guy you'd like to be listening to, over lunch. PT's image of Voya.

[Steve Rosenblum]

I have the privilege to own two of Voja's prints--an HCB and a Peter Turnley print. I am amazed at the tonality achieved in both of these prints--even at a large size from such a small negative. If you have a chance to view any of the actual prints I urge you to do so. If you ever have the lucky opportunity to buy one for yourself you will never regret it. They are marvelous.

[MartinP]

Very interesting ! I saw some of the printing from Picto at the Rencontres Arles last month, where there was an expo on the history of the lab.

For those wanting a book about what a 'good' print can look like, I'd only recommend going to see some exhibitions ;o) There was also the point raised of some drab early prints in the HCB expo - if those were intended for reproduction then they would need to be fairly flat so as to work with the screening and half-toning available. A couple of decades ago, I made a lot of prints like that myself as my employer had a contract with a large print-works.

I'm looking forwards to the next instalment . . .

[Rod S.]

A very enjoyable - and informative - read, Peter. I particularly liked your description of Voja helping you get a job at Picto. Thanks for posting it, Mike.

[Andrew Korlaki - Melbourne, Australia]

I was a professional black and white printer for over 20 years. I was good, but I never felt I was a natural printer...

I remember going to see a H.C.B exhibition 10 or more years ago. It was fascinating listening to peoples comments (there was a amateur photography exhibition on as well in town, so there were a coule of hundred keen amatuer photographers in town....). They talked about the composition, the lighting, the focus...

But I didn't hear one person talk about the prints. No one talked about the tonal range. Or about how you could see the sprocket holes from the film in some of the prints - where the printers had strived to get detail into dark areas where there was almost none. Or how difficult some of the negatives had been to dodge - where you were right on the edge of having to over dodge an area to get detail into a part of a print..

I learnt more about printing at that exhibition than I had in the previous 10 years. It gave me a new respect for the printers art, and helped make me a better printer.

I can only that Voja and all the other printers at Picto for making me think about what I was doing and becoming a better printer....

[dsr]

Thank you for this!

[Stan B.]

Just think of all the generations (current and future) who'll have absolutely no clue whatsoever as to what Voja pulled off with those 80 prints. They'll think the magic was simply in the number- the very smallest obstacle to that amazing achievement...

[Ken Tanaka]

@ MartinP: " There was also the point raised of some drab early prints in the HCB expo - if those were intended for reproduction then they would need to be fairly flat so as to work with the screening and half-toning available."

That's exactly the case, Martin. Many, perhaps most, of the pre-war, and immediate post-war, prints in the first two sections were indeed produced for publication repro. In fact, one of the most fascinating little sights of the show is one such print displayed backward so that we can see all of the stamps and instructions written on a typical repro print of the day (194x). Several versions (repro and exhibition) of one particular print are shown to illustrate just such a point.

Off-topic, but still noteworthy, is that Henri did print his own work before WWII but apparently abandoned the task later. (Resigned that he could not possibly do better than Voja?) According to Peter Galassi Henri's niece, Anne Cartier-Bresson, is undertaking a study of his images' printing so perhaps we'll hear more on this subject one day soon. She's a prominent photography conservator so she's up to the challenge.

[Paul Amyes]

I'm afraid that it is very difficult to learn how to print really well from books, Lord knows I really tried. It's really about watching and working with a fine printer that you learn. I can honestly say that I learnt more in 10 hours this way than I did in 20 years of reading.

I really wish that I could keep a darkroom going, but unfortunately at the moment it is not a realistic proposition, and I'm afraid by the time it is that it will be next to impossible as getting materials will be very difficult.

[Michael W]

Great story. I'd also second the idea suggested by the earlier Michael that it would be great to have a DVD of Voja. Knowledge like this can be lost so easily.

[john gillooly]

Really a great story - and an inspiring one! I'd be very interested to know of the digital equivalent of this printing expertise? Where does Peter, or the current Magnum or VII photographers, have their digital files printed? I'm very interested in that process and how one can go about outsourcing this back end to actual printers.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Love hearing first-hand accounts of this sort. TOP continues to excel!

It sounds like we have more than two actual custom printers here, and of course any number of photographers.

What I would like to see about up there with anything in the whole world is a symposium where somebody (Mike, say) picked a very small number of images from some offered by photographers, and at least two, by preference more, printers worked their magic and showed the results and wrote about what they did and why. Ideally, the camera originals would be available for each of us to play with as well, made available before the expert versions came out, so we could see how we liked our own next to the pro versions.

Obviously this is asking two or more experts to spend time (or asking Mike to spend money). The originals would have to have some potential, or it would be a waste of time. For the full version (letting us play ourselves) the photographers would have to let one of their images a bit further into the world than many people are comfortable with.

But I can't remember EVER seeing this done; I don't know of anywhere I can see different interpretations of some images, with explanations from each printer on what they thought they were accomplishing.

It seems to me like it would be tremendously educational.

Also the full version described pretty much has to be digital (to share around originals that widely any other way seems...unlikely), and if the display is online...does that take it outside the realm of expertise of too many people, so we don't have candidates to actually do it? Or do too many of the printers think the digital display loses so much this wouldn't produce useful results?

Oh, and on top of that there's the risk of comments being offensive to people who generously participated by providing photos or doing post-processing.

Maybe it's unfeasible (insufficient people willing to take the key roles), or not a good idea, or not likely to be productive. Or just not something Mike wants to do. But man does it sound interesting!

(If there's, say, a book with something on this basis, I'd LOVE a pointer to it!)

[Julia Timmer]

Thanks for the fascinating distraction Peter.
Paris Student,
Julia

[Jeff Damron]

An amazing and important piece of photographic history - really one of the best stories I have read on this type of subject. I don't think even my Epson could spit out 80 perfect 8x10-ish prints in an hour. I don't know that I've turned out 80 perfect prints in 30 years in the darkroom! I am both inspired and humbled.

[Mike Johnston]

DD-B,
"Black & White Photography" magazine has a feature pretty much exactly like you describe. It's called "The Printer's Art." Every month they give a negative to two different printers and give a step-by-step through their printing process, then show the final results of each. It was one of my favorite features in the magazine, although some months were a lot better than others.

Mike

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Mike, I think you've even told me that before. I'll have to dig up a paper copy or two to look at (I haven't yet found this bit of the magazine on their website).

Thanks!

[thomas butler]

A beautiful story, Peter. As one who is connected to the former Yugoslavia, and today to Bosnia, I appreciate your giving Voja his due. Tom butler

[David Dyer-Bennet]

80 prints in an hour is impressive. Just the mechanical handling of the negatives plus the exposure time plus focusing are eating a significant chunk of 60 minutes.

And getting 80 exposure spot-on without developing one of them is downright scary.

[AYRTON360]

This is a great story
I'm glad I've read it.
I'm getting more and more interested in black&white lately.
Thanks for posting
cheers
AYRTON

[Denise N Ralph]

Thank you David K. for recommending this excellent story about Voja Mitrovic and Peter Turnley and a beginning of a wonderful life with many challenges!

[Paul R.]

I just received two prints from Peter. Both were printed and signed en verso by Voja. They now hang next to the Cartier-Bresson picture that was also printed by Voja.
This story gave extra meaning to the pictures and I think you both.

[Veba]

Great story... what really intrigues me though is the destiny of Radmilo Mazic and his photographic archive from 1950's Foca...

[Thomas Apitzsch]

There are some more untold stories of great printers. One of them was Larry Bartlett, the wizard in the lab of a daily newspaper in London and 5-times (? even more) winner of the Ilford Printer of The Year Award. His book in which he reveals some of his techniques is still sold on Amazon. I could look over his shoulders and it was indeed amazing how a skilled printer like Larry would print an image in no time with his hands between the enlarger lens and the paper dodging and burning it to perfection.
Well, the good old times...