Digital BW, The Print

Andy,

Thanks for letting us know. His name came up today in a post and my reply. I
was wondering what had become of him after he sold Zone VI to Calumet. His
book got me going in the right direction. I don't even know how many of his
great products I have but it is a fair number. A man of strong opinions.
Sometimes irritating, frequently insightful and ever dedicated to improving
the art and the craft of B&W photography.

I hope that someone will mount a retrospective of his work, as that would be
a most fitting tribute.

Martin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Biggs" <abiggs@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 11:20 PM
Subject: RE: [Digital BW] Random Thoughts


> 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
> > and
> other resources as they are often being updated. The page is at:
> >
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint
> >
> > Please follow these basic guidelines:
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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/
>
>
>
>
> 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/
>
>
>