Digital BW, The Print

Richard Sintchak <richard@...> writes:

> Wednesday, September 18, 2002, 10:20:47 PM, david_bookbinder@... wrote:
> 
> dsc> But the images are so good, why, as Jerry pointed out, would 
> dsc> anyone care?
> 
> 
> All very good points. But perhaps they would care if they knew (that
> "he...."helps" the image by increasing the saturation...and other
> times he alters them considerably". I think they would. And I do not
> think it would "help" his status or his reputation. I think he'd get a
> chorus of "oh, that's how he did it..." And I cannot imagine it would
> help the sale along any.
> 
> My point is that people (general public) ARE catching on. And it does
> matter to them. And when they do find out they ARE less impressed. Not
> more.

Even back when the materials were available, art photographers
selling dye-transfer prints clearly (to my eyes, anyway) didn't get
down-rated for using this technology to give them more control over
contrast and color.  In fact I'm pretty sure they got *extra* for it. 

Galen Rowell had converted to digital printing some time before his
recent fatal plane crash; there's a good article about it, or was last
I looked, on his web site.  I didn't get the impression, from any
articles or discussion I saw after that came out, that people thought
less of his work because it used digital technology in its process. 

Photographers who knew about Agfa #6 paper didn't, in my experience
back in highschool, get negative reactions to their employing that
technology to provide extra "punch" to pictures they thought needed
it, either. 

Photographers who use large-format cameras to get smoother tonality
and better detail don't, so far as I can see, get criticized in the
marketplace for employing these unfair technologies to "assist" their
art. 

So why is "digital" somehow different and special?  And remember that
the *other* major use for dye-transfer was in advertising work, where
they wanted to make major alterations to the images. 
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@...  /  http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
 John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
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