Digital BW, The Print

At 10:36 PM -0700 10/16/02, Martin Wesley wrote:
>.....
>
>One thing strikes me though. While we need to be informed about conservation
>and longevity, I really have to question to what degree we should let this
>rule our art. If we feel one set of materials is better artistically, even
>though it may not be the best for longevity, maybe we should follow the art.
>
>Martin Wesley
>
>http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html
>

Martin,

Your comments above touched on something I wanted to discuss for a 
while now.  After 22 years in art and photography I worried about 
archival quality and technical matters a good bit of the time. 
However, I don't believe archival quality/longevity should be the 
tail that wags the dog. Nor do I want to become a slave to 
densitometery readings.  At some point most of us need to just look 
at the image and it either works or it doesn't.

I think we should learn to trust our aesthetic judgement and our eyes 
instead of relying on the photo scientists for everything.  One of 
the positive things about being a member of a list like this is that 
there is a ton of excellent technical information that is all very 
helpful.  However, sometimes I think it needs to be put in 
prospective or it can stop us from taking excellent images or even 
make us reject new technology because of some perceived specification 
that does not "meet the numbers".  .

A recent example is the densitometer readings of photo rag with the 
new Ultrachorme inks. After reading a number of posts, I was 
disappointed and concerned that my favorite paper might be no good 
with these inks.  However, I went further and purchased test images 
on different stocks with the new inks using an Epson 7600 from 
inkjetart.com in Salt Lake City.  I am happy to report that the 
samples look great to me and the photo rag paper looks just fine in 
both black and white or color mode.  I have ordered a 7600 and look 
forward to using it.

Believe me that I am not anti-science and have been a very proficient 
tester of developers/papers and other things over the years using 
traditional darkroom techniques.  I do remember, however, an 
experience with the editor of one of the more technically oriented 
photo magazines which I will not name, but it's editorial offices are 
in the midwest.  Their magazine is replete with very technical 
article riddled with many charts, graphs and occasional chemical 
notations...however, the photographs that accompanied many of these 
articles were aesthetically some of the most boring pictures I have 
ever seen.

I went to a Photo West meeting about 15 years ago and stopped by 
their booth and met their editor.  As a long time subscriber to the 
magazine, I told him I enjoyed reading the technical articles and 
wondered it they ever accepted portfolios to publish.I showed him 
some of mine that I had with me.   He took one look and said, "oh, 
you are a fine arts photographer and most of our readers don't relate 
well to that kind or work.  They like the more straightforward 
technical stuff."...Well, that said it all...I then understood why 
the great technical articles accompanied with mediocre photos were 
the norm for that magazine.

In summary, I am not at all anti-technical, but would argue that we 
need to loosen up a bit and experiment with materials and techniques 
that are not yet blessed by Wilhelm or other demi-Gods in the photo 
world lest we become very sterile about this wonderful field that has 
a history of bold experimentation. I am sure many of you are familiar 
with the works of Man Ray or the Starns twins.  The twins, whose work 
I thought was quite innovative, occasionally used scotch tape in 
their work, the thought of which still sends chills up the spines of 
some of my more archivally driven colleagues.

yours digitally,

Bill Agee
-- 

bill agee studio
capistrano beach, ca / laguna beach, ca

http://www.redsilver.com