Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., ncm <ncm@m...> 
wrote:
Hell, man be positive about the process! No head hanging or 
> foot shuffling allowed (g).
> Cheers, 
> Nina

Nina (and others),

In the privacy of my own office, and the privacy of my own mind, I 
am extremely positive about this whole process. No question. I 
feel like five-times the "craftsman" that I was when I printed in the 
darkroom. I know my craft, I know my materials, I am in touch 
with damn near every single pixel in every image that I scan now 
(due to anal dust-spotting, but I'm not really proud of that...). I 
never took the time to really find out what was in Ilford Multigrade 
Matte when I used it (but I guess there also wasn't a cultural fear 
that the print would fade in five years either). So I am with you; I 
stand tall, until............I enter the outside world.

What we all need, as inkjet printers, is a PR agency. We need 
some slimy agency to dream us up a campaign to alter the 
mindset of gallery owners and the outside world. (I volunteer my 
new musty warehouse with classical music. I'll even bring in my 
fog machine, to put that ever-lovely presence of atmosphere in 
the air. I'll even put the fogger directly behind my 7000, so that it 
looks like the printer is from the Industrial Age.)

But seriously, I think that until we DO admit and address this 
"computer issue" and, this "fading/shifting" issue, we're behind 
the eight-ball right out of gate. 

To me, the whole image of Jon Cone is starting to alter that 
mindset. Given, I've never met the guy, but my vision is that he's 
sitting up there in Vermont, or wherever he is, and he milks the 
cows at sunrise, then comes in and cranks up his 7000 and 
starts printing. There are little Woodstock girls with no makeup, 
in Birkenstocks, answering the phones, taking orders, and 
listening to Phish in their walkmans. Bill Bergh is over in the 
corner loading up a new bong-hit while he peruses the new copy 
of Lens Work Magazine. The whole thing is probably just a huge 
painted backdrop, and Jon and Bill are right now sitting in a 
cheap condo outside of Cleveland, in their underwear, eating 
potato chips.

This may, or may not, be true. But at least it's a different image 
than a bunch of computer geeks making prints on an inkjet, 
sitting in a flourescent-lit green office, popping zits, listening to 
Devo, surfing the web for Britney Spears fakes, and reading 
Popular Mechanics. 

We've got to somehow bring the idea of a-r-t  into inkjet, on a 
whole societal level. I'm not sure how to address the issue, but I 
for sure know that this mindset is out there, and it's working 
against us every day.

-Mark