Digital BW, The Print

Obsession with "archival" began sometime in the Seventies, primarily
as for marketing hype, by Zone IV workshop. Same hype issue today.

 The most basic standard in the Seventies was 100years with minimal
change. There was no measurement beyond visual. There was more concern
about negatives than prints, of course. 

It's false to say that earlier work faded rapidly OR that people chose
between cotton rag or woodpulp paper. Routine Eastman Kodak
recommendations for processing and wash were highly reliable and most
photographers adhered rigorously to them. 

Virtually nobody knew what kind of pulp was involved.

There was zero worry about photo paper acidity except in museums.
Ansel wasn't worried, Weston wasn't worried, Avedon wasn't
worried....for good reason.

Many of us have fantasies about the importance of our images and we
have ever-increasing ignorance and entirely unfounded superstitions,
such as about magnetism and hard drive storage.

If we sell prints we want them to last for some sort of long time,
properly framed. If someone asks "is it archival" you better hope
you're dead before they learn otherwise IF you've used the "archival"
lie. We can't even say what we mean when we use the term...can we?

Will we blame Wilhelm?  Did he certify our prints in some way?

I think it's dishonest to use the term "archival" in a sale because
nobody here has a real basis for the word. Wilhelm won't back us up
and we can only guess, as Clayton has, how he arrived at his erratic,
perhaps-bogus numbers.

IMO it's honest sometimes to say "the print will likely last with
minimal change for several lifetimes, but there's no guarantee."  More
than that seems pure hype.  
 


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Tim Atherton"
<timatherton@...> wrote:
>
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "djon43" 
> <djon43@> wrote:
> >
> > Our ancestors' prints lasted nicely for 50 years without much care,
> > and remarkably well in many cases for 100-plus  without "archival"
> > crossing anybody's lips. 
> > 
> > Average-good prints from 1890 can be scanned and printed beautifully
> > today...sometimes looking better than new...I say that on the basis of
> > lots of my own family's images and many that have come to my
> > collection ranging from 60 to 100 years (eg from Austria, Russia, and
> > China) 
> 
> Those of course are the ones which survived - plenty haven't.
> 
> I've seen hundreds of old prints and negatives brought in to photo 
> archives which are basically only good for the garbage.
>