Digital BW, The Print

There was an interesting story in Sunday's paper here in San Jose. The very first photograph which is bitumen on a pewter plate taken by Joseph Niepce on a summer day in 1826 is being shipped to the conservation department of the Getty Museum for scientific analysis. The goal is to better understand its composition in order to optimize conservation of the plate and its fading image.

The article ended with this paragraph:

"Stulik [Dusan Stulik, a Getty conservation scientist] said he fears traditional photography will not live to see its third century, making the need to understand its chemistry - from Niepce to Polaroid .... all the more pressing.

"Ultimately, he  said, advances in digital photography may do for its chemical counterpart what Gutenberg and the printing press did to the world of illuminated manuscripts in the 1400's.

"'It ended it,' Stulik said."

Which makes me wonder why they are not looking at the conservation issues of ink jet and other digital photographic printing medium now when they are still fresh. But maybe they are and we are just not hearing about it. I also think that he is wrong and chemical based photograph will live on long after digital has dominated the commercial and family side of the business. Every form of chemical photograph seems to have undergone a revival in the last decade and, while small, had a group of fans and practitioners

Martin Wesley


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]