Digital BW, The Print

Thanks Barrett,

Where I live - the photoclub of this area killed itself...by
internal struggle for power and ..You all know that stuff ..not at 
all unusual ..and that was 13 years ago. 
As a matter of fact - everyone still remember that!
Perhaps it was good?????

No one never dared to pick up that hat again!!!

That said ...being 55+ years old ... I strongly feel there is a 
vacuum here. This town is full of theaters , artgalleries , 
jazzclubbs.....

You are right .... I'll try to pick up that hat again!

Not an easy one - this was the former town for making film(movies) in 
Sweden...so I have a feeling no one dares to.....

Remarkable - this town without an progressiv *picture* society.

It's so burdened by it's former history - that no one dares!
We have a huge film museum!!!!!

OK - before You gave me that suggestion I had it in mind - and I'm 
grown now....to "pick that hat up"....but thinking more in *pictures* 
than *photos* I'll try to put some fire on this - but doing it myself 
chosing my fellow photographrs - I'll try to do this photoclub a more 
progressive touch - a "jazzier" approach not burdened by it's 
history - giving it a place in the time being and coming - platinum 
to digital "all of the jazz bands allowed". A word used could be the 
dream name "The free liberal photoclub of Kristianstad -Sweden" ! 
Come as you are - do what you feel for - no competitions - because 
one can't compete in art- but exhibitions etc.

"I have a dream" - I'll try to fullfill it - without old judges - the 
spectators shall be our judges - not "old frozen fast people" that 
think they know!

Opening of an exhibitions - and do the show stright out!
Perhaps even putting pricetags on the *pictures* - not 
necessery "marketprices" - but a price - and then the real judges - 
the spectatars might understand - and gives hints to some of us - 
what is correct - at that very time!

Thanks to You from Australia - sorry don't remember Your name just 
now, and to You Darren.

The others might open a new thread discussing zooms for LF-cameras,
as you did find that more interesting in this thread - go on!

I have a mission now - and I do have friends to start talking to!

Who knows - old Kristianstad/Sweden - will be placed again on the map 
of Film and Photo!

And by that - I feel forced to end this thread as it got some 
qualities and inspirations here at the end of it! Don't destry this 
end/start!

Fiat Lux! ( Let There be Light!)

Regards

Bo Wrangborg
Sweden
Moderator of Minolta "multipro" at Yahoo 



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "amateriat" <bwbenton@b...> 
wrote:
> My experience with camera clubs over the past 25 years has 
> been overwhelmingly negative. Groucho Marx's quip about never 
> wanting to join any club that would have him as a member sort of 
> applies to me, even though people have repeatedly asked me to 
> - they obviously didn't know me as well as they thought they did.
> 
> The problems were numerous, and I saw them coming a mile 
> away: I loved 35mm, while many club members wouldn't give the 
> time of day to anyone shooting smaller than medium format; 
> when my landscape work was leaning toward a somewhat 
> quirky sort of impressionism, it would be judges as being too 
> fussily artsy(!); I would be on of the very few to show up with 
work 
> done with lenses wider than 28mm - let's just say the judging 
> and coversation regarding this one fact was interesting.  An old 
> friend here in New York is a member of one of the better-known 
> camera clubs here, and her experience, if anything, has actually 
> been a bit worse, with crazy-harsh critiques of work of hers that I 
> thought was stunning. Of course, I had warned her of this 
> happening prior to her joining.
> 
> Photographers, of course, can be a highly opinionated lot (bless 
> 'em!), but it's also all too true that we can be an awfully
> provincial 
> lot as well, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the 
> hothouse environment of the camera club (with the possible 
> exception of the New York gallery scene).  One-upmanship plays 
> hand-in-glove with this too: At the camera store, the proud owner 
> of a fixed-zoom-lens digital SLR crows about how his camera 
> will wipe the floor with the film-burning 35mm rangefinder slung 
> over my shoulder;  someone else who just bought a MF 
> rangefinder, interestingly, tells me almost exactly the same thing 
> (but in the latter case is briefer, and can actually explain *why* 
he 
> feels that way).  I simply smile wanly and ask the counter person 
> for a few bricks of film and some Lyson carts.
> 
> This may be one of the most flat-out exciting periods in 
> photography - on the one hand, so much in the way of 
> technology-driven methods are really giving us interesting 
> solutions to longstanding photographc issues (as well as 
> offering, IMO, solutions in search of problems, unfortunately); On 
> the proverbial other hand, we see renewed interest in *very* old 
> processes, in some cases spurred on by - ironically - digital 
> scanning and printing.  This, I feel, is a Very Good Thing, and 
> something that would be somewhat lost in the padded...ahem, 
> carpeted rooms where club members congregate every second 
> Tuesday (or something).  I won't shoot on anything but film for 
> the time being, but after the film is souped n' louped, it's off to
> the 
> scanner and printers as fast as I can go.  There's room for all of 
> this, and all of us.  Process IS important, and yet we have to 
> develop those processes/workflows that work for each of us, to 
> get the work right for us before we get around to showing it to 
> others - the moment when the work stands or falls on its own 
> merit (hopefully).
> 
> And, to Bo: at least here in the States there's a time-honored 
> childhood tradition regarding clubs and "clubbiness" - if they 
> won't have you, go out and start your own. ;-)
> 
>  - Barrett