Jack Welpott – darkroom pro passionate for black and white photography. A large-paned window in a room in an old house, a round oak table set with the remnants of breakfast, a Victorian mirror, a sketch pinned to the wall, a lumpy couch, a young girl - the random elements of a random morning make up the black and white photograph at right. At first glance it seems to be nothing more than a lucky snapshot. In reality its complex balancing of lights and darks was meticulously created in the darkroom. Its creator, a professor of black and white photography at San Francisco State College, has exhibited his work in numerous galleries and museums, including the George Eastman House in Rochester. Jack Welpott took the black and white picture with a 4 x 5 view camera. He placed it high on a tripod ''to emphasize the position of the objects-each in its place and in relationship to every other object." The girl is the black and white picture's center of attention. Her image appears three times-on the couch, as a reflection in the mirror and as a sketch on the wall - her pensive expression and lowered head in all three manifestations helping to establish an atmosphere of brooding tension. "The round table," says Welpott, "stabilizes these conflicts. The image is filled with commonplace objects which react to each other in uncommon ways - it becomes a sort of dialogue between objects." In order to get maximum detail despite the relatively dim light-the only illumination came from the room's single window-Welpott closed down his lens to f/32 and made an exposure that lasted four seconds. "I exposed for the shadows and then underdeveloped the negative by 45 per cent to reduce contrast. Had the negative been fully developed, all of the surface texture in the highlights-particularly around the window-would have been lost." Close scrutiny of this black and white picture reveals a secret of the black and white printmakers' art. Notice the relative brightness of the seated girl and her reflected image. The reflection is brighter than the girl herself, although ordinarily a mirror reflection is a bit darker than the object it shows. The explanation is that Welpott, in making his enlargement, held back the exposure in the dark, right-hand side of the black and white picture to keep detail in the mirror frame and in the deep shadows around the right-hand side of the table. By doing so, he lightened the reflected image of the girl as well, calling attention to it and at the same time underscoring the tension that is the black and white picture's theme.