Hedda Morrison, like many photographers, actually printed relatively few of her lifetime’s output of photographs; and she printed probably less than one fifth of her Hong Kong negatives from 1946 – 47. Thus this project saw the first major printing of those images. The project’s darkroom prints were based on the assumption that Hedda Morrison would have wished to see her negatives printed to show the maximum detail and tonal quality, with rich but not extreme contrast.  
 
Of many choices made during this project none brought more photographic gains than the decision that Harvard would make fine reproduction prints, instead of simply ‘working prints’.  This inspired decision, based on a desire to seek the highest quality for Hedda Morrison’s photographs, was taken early in February 2004. Bill Comstock, Manager of the Digital Imaging and Photography Group, of the Harvard College Library, considered this with his photographers, in particular Stephen Sylvester, and with Edward Stokes. His decision was enthusiastically welcomed.
 
This brought into full play the broad experience, expertise and excellent facilities
of the Harvard lab. And it brought right to the heart of the project – printing its photographs – Stephen Sylvester, Bob Zinck and other Photography Group staff.
In Stephen Sylvester the images gained a photographer and darkroom printer of masterly skill. His dedication and craftsmanship, his absolute passion to draw
out every tone from the negatives, to preserve their elusive shadow and highlight details – all these, and more, shine through the images on this website.
 
Close communication led to almost seamless collaboration between Harvard
and the Hong Kong design team: distance and time zones were overcome by the challenges and pleasures of an exciting endeavour. Testing of the negative printing advised the early production development work in Hong Kong. The refinement
of some aspects of the book printing plans were fed back to slightly modify the Harvard printing. Step by step the evolving work was pegged higher. Gradually the parts became a whole.
 
Stephen Sylvester made the prints, reproduced now on this website. He used his photographer’s independent, necessarily subjective eye, his visual discrimination and his experience. He alone was the final arbiter of Hedda Morrison’s negatives. As Hedda herself so often had, Stephen immersed himself in the little-changed chemical smells and paraphernalia of the darkroom. Beneath his enlarger, for
days at a time, months in all, he gazed at the baseboard’s subdued reversed-tone image. There, Sylvester took his exposures from the negatives’ middle tones, and then ‘dodged’ and ‘burned’ to hold their shadow and highlight area details. The results speak for themselves.