Digital BW, The Print

I know this is a little off topic, but tied in, nonetheless.

Fred Picker passed away today. The announcement was made over in the
large format users' group forum:

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=008dPB

I thought those who learned their skills from Fred, whether in person or
through his books, enlargers, cameras, light meters, etc. would want to
know.

God rest his soul.

Andy

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Wesley [mailto:mwesley250@...] 
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 11:14 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Random Thoughts


Roger,

In general I agree with your thoughts. I found my way to the Zone System
via Fred Picker's book before I picked up the Adams trilogy. Fred always
seemed to come up with terribly outrageous statements intermixed with
gems of simple wisdom. I can't say that I would recommend his writings
to anyone at this point but he did say one thing that has stuck with me.

Find someone whose prints you really like and then find out how they do
it.

It is in the "how they do it" part that we can't help but get embroiled
in technical "discussions". I went from Picker, to Adams, to using a
densitometer and on to doing some very extensive film, development and
paper testing. I certainly do not see that as a necessity to producing
great art but at the same time I do feel that I benefited a great deal
by increasing my understanding of how it all worked. In the end this let
me step back from a strict application of the Zone System to my own way
of working that is Zone based but a bit more intuitive. Maybe it was
just all the practice.

I do have to point out that if no one was measuring printouts of step
tablets there would be no curves, no drivers and no workflows for us to
print with. It can also be extremely helpful in figuring out what is
going wrong when you hit a problem.

This is a very new technology compared to photography as a whole and the
scope of the technical issues is much greater. It is going to take us
awhile to determine which of those issues are critical and which we can
safely ignore.

We have to keep in mind that even though me may have mastered
conventional photographic printing this is a whole new ballgame and
there are no real experts yet. The technology needs to settle a bit and
we need to put in the practice time with these new digital tools.

Martin Wesley

----- Original Message -----
From: "rlsopher" <rlsopher@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 11:53 AM
Subject: [Digital BW] Random Thoughts


> Not to be a complete nihilist and fun as it is to become embroiled in 
> technical arguments, they really don't, to my view, address the final 
> result which is to produce a print that "says something."
>
> Fred Picker used to make the point that to make a great print you had 
> to see it as it was going to hang on the wall about the time you 
> snapped the shutter. He taught technique just so far as to give one 
> the tools to produce a good print of archival quality and spent most 
> of the time in his workshops trying to teach people to see, a far more

> difficult task than learning how to develop and print. In my 
> experience there are far more good printers than good photographers.
>
>
> Seems to me that thanks to a few noble souls digital B&W is 
> approaching, perhaps now equalling, good silver prints and the tools 
> are now there to be used. The tools have to be mastered to be sure but

> measuring the density of innumerable step wedges isn't going to 
> produce a single memorable image. Somethimes I wonder if having the 
> ability to modify so many parameters compared to wet printing we 
> wander in the trees and have lost the forest.
>
> Roger
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Please visit the Group Homepage to check the Files, Bookmarks, Polls 
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other resources as they are often being updated. The page is at:
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>




Please visit the Group Homepage to check the Files, Bookmarks, Polls and
other resources as they are often being updated. The page is at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint

Please follow these basic guidelines:
- Include your full name with your message.
- Include the address of your website, if you have one.
- As threads develop, trim off excess portions of earlier messages to
keep them short.
- As the topic of a thread changes remember to change the subject
header.
- Good manners are required at all time. No personal attacks or
"flames."
- Complete your Yahoo profile.
- Before posting a question, search the message archives and the various
resources on the homepage. 


 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/