Digital BW, The Print

My only direct contact with him was pretty funny to me. I had bought my
Beseler 4x5 from Zone VI, but without a lens. He was a big proponent of
coldlight heads and longer than standard focal length lenses for any given
format. Regardless of what anybody thinks of coldlight vs condenser, the
coldlight does tend to give more even corner illumination than condensers
set to their "normal" position. But I digress...

Anyway, when it came to buy a lens I called to ask what he thought would be
the better lens, a 75mm Schneider or the 63mm Nikon. His answer to me was,
whatever I did there was no way to get a good 16x20 print from a 35mm neg.

Thanks Fred...

Todd

> Andy,
> 
> One of my favorite Fred moments was when he was critiquing readers prints
> for Photo Techniques(?). Someone sent in a typical New England shot of a
> mill complete with water wheel and pond. The magazine reproduction was too
> small and low quality for the readers to really see anything but it didn't
> look too bad. Fred was not gentle. The photographer had written that the
> shot was not quite as sharp as it could have been because he didn't want to
> take his tripod out of the car. Fred went orbital and made the statement to
> the effect that: If the picture isn't worth using a tripod it isn't worth
> taking. Which out of context caused a nice flap. I think that was the last
> reader review he did for the magazine.
> 
> It is a great shame he is gone and I can't help but wonder what he would of
> thought of all this digital B&W. Now he would have been a lively group
> member!
> 
> Martin
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andrew Biggs" <abiggs@...>
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 11:58 PM
> Subject: RE: [Digital BW] Random Thoughts
> 
> 
>> Martin-
>> 
>> When I think of Fred, yes, I think of sometimes polarizing views. I
>> chuckle when I think of his saying that 'you cannot shoot pictures of
>> cows or of covered bridges. They have all been taken too many times".
>> Only from Fred. Only from Fred. He taught us the intricacies of tones
>> and the zone system, and then told us what we could and could not take
>> pictures of.
>> 
>> Laughing out loud. Lord, take Fred and take care of him. Just don't piss
>> him off.
>> 
>> Andy
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Martin Wesley [mailto:mwesley250@...]
>> Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 11:53 PM
>> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
>> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Random Thoughts
>> 
>> 
>> 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
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>>>> 
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>>>> 
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>> Please visit the Group Homepage to check the Files, Bookmarks, Polls and
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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:
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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:
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>