Digital BW, The Print

Jack, 

Another very interesting post.  Thanks for putting the details up.  Lots to think about. 

There are many ways to skin a cat.  

For instance, for some photographers, a solution is to give the negatives to the customer (at some price) and leave it to the customer to be responsible for them. 10 years in the future, the customer is the one who takes the negs to someone for reprinting.  Of course this solution is not going to work for many photographers (especially those doing art work) but may be the future for digital photography.  In the future, the photographer will take the photo and "sell" the digital file or a selected output (print etc..).  Some are doing this now.  

I think the digital revolution is what is going to create needs to change business practices in many areas of photography...portrait studios are experiencing this dramatically with Proshots and other types of change.  

As for the historical photos and their longevity, that was discussed in a lengthy thread about 2 or 3 months ago on the PiezoBW list.  

Your post has lots of potential for many threads...let's see what others have to say.

Steadman


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: JackG 
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2001 7:18 AM
  Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Re: A Call for Standards (Permanence/Stability)/ the Real World


  Hi Steadman,

  Yes, he felt color would not last and refused to offer it.

  Let me mention one more thing about prints going bad.

  About five to seven years ago I decided to close my darkroom and contract
  out what little B&W  I was doing to my color/B&W lab for printing and
  finishing.  This decision was made because I was not doing as much
  commercial work as in the past and B&W portraits were becoming popular
  again. Most of the portraits I offer are traditionally retouched on the
  negative and then what can't be completed there is positively done on the
  print. It was not practical for me to continue having the lab retouch the
  neg, return it to me for printing and then send it back to them for positive
  retouching, texture, mounting and protective "SPRAY".  I know there must
  have been some exceptions, but most of the B&W prints they made for me went
  bad within one to two years. I have never had to replace so many prints in
  all 35 plus years of business. Not only was it embarrassing, it certainly
  had some financial ramifications. Every municipal judge that I photographed
  over the past 5 to seven years had to be replaced. I do not know why they
  kept using me when I had to reprint everything at least twice. This business
  was started in 1945, we have B&W portraits and candid wedding prints that
  have been out there for a long, long time.  What caused this problem? You
  will not like the answer, NO ONE KNOWS!  Everyone blamed each other, Kodak
  said it was the labs fault, the lab said it was the spray, etc. What were we
  doing differently now that we had not done in the past, extensive retouching
  and then SPRAYING it!  My guess was the spray caused the problem, I am now
  paying for expensive laminates to hide the retouching, which alters the true
  look of B&W.  The best answer I came up with before that was to have the
  retouching done digitally and then create a new neg that you did not need to
  spray to hide the retouching. Then the lab stopped offering that service
  because of the unreliable equipment.

  I am now in the process of having a 16 x 20 color portrait of a child
  restored. I would guess it is about 10 years old.
  I gave an estimate of approximately $500.  That is probably more than she
  paid for the original, but I doubt if  I will make much money on it. The
  original studio that produced the portrait is no longer in business. They
  were a fine studio that had been in business for over 50 years.

  Now a philosophical question, if all the work you did 10 years went bad due
  to no fault of your own, should you replace it for free or at least at
  material cost? The above example is going to cost a lot because I did not
  have the original neg. and we are having to do it digitally. As we all know
  computer time is expensive.

  Want another can of worms, how long should you store negs or data disks to
  replace prints???? I can guarantee you this, you do not store negs to make
  money on reprints at a much later date.

  Regards,

  John In Okc

  snip
  : John,
  : Thanks for posting.
  :
  : But I missed your point about the guy with high standards and why his
  client (wealthy) left him.  Is it because they wanted color and he did not
  provide color?
  :
  : Steadman
  :   ----- Original Message -----
  :   <snip>:   There was a photographer in this city, who with his wife
  produced some of
  :   the best B & W and oil tinted B & W prints that I have ever seen. He
  felt
  :   that he was doing his clients a disservice to offer a medium that was
  not up
  :   to his standards. His clients were the more wealthy in this town, they
  :   deserted him and he went BROKE!
  <big snip>


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