Digital BW, The Print

I see. I didn't realize you had such a background with the museum community. I also see why you are casting a wide net for end users. There are a lot of them out there.

 It just amazes me how museum curators and gallery owners, and art collectors who are actively selling and buying photographs are so ignorant of what is going on. I mean totally ignorant.  I think part of the reason is that they have never seen a website like yours that actually displays the patches and data as it changes in time, and under varied amounts of light.

I still have people telling me, today actually,  that Lightjets on Fuji Chrystal Archive is some great product that will last 120 years ( yea maybe in 50 megalux "museum" lighting but I wouldn't  bet on it.)

john



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Mark" <mark@...> wrote:
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> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "john" <deanwork2003@> wrote:
> >.... I keep thinking the gallery and museum community needs to become involved with all this somehow. I just don't think a lot of them know about it yet. I mean, this isn't like the old days where people keep using the same materials decade after decade. These days every year has a whole new crop of inks and media to think about. And as we can see, they aren't all the same.
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> > john
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> John, as you probably know, I come from that world. I was the Senior research photographic scientist at the Smithsonian Institution for 10 years before going back into private practice.  I know many photo conservators, conservation scientists, archivists, librarians, program directors, etc., in the museum and archives community.  And thus I can say with pretty good authority that this community is not going to help me with my research on digital print media.  For one thing, AaI&A is not a non profit organization which disqualifies it from most grant programs to the arts and sciences.  For another, even if AaI&A was eligible for grants, it takes months and months, even years to secure a decent grant. The grant proposal process is good for people who already have some sort of institutional job and can collect a regular paycheck while writing proposals and waiting through the long approval processes. AaI&A has no such safety net, so looking to the museum and archives community for financial support is basically a non starter. 
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> Non profit organizations like museums and archives also rely heavily on corporate donations. They would therefore carefully avoid any connection with research that produces product-specific test results.  For example, you don't see product-specific print permanence research from IPI.  IPI is a well funded non profit research lab connected to a major academic institution (RIT).  It does great work but of a generalized "caring for your photographs" nature.  You won't find Fuji/kodak, HP/Epson, etc. comparisons ever published by IPI because it's parent organization (RIT) understandably wants to maintain good relationships with the entire corporate world.
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> Hence, I founded AaI&A to help fill the current print permanence information void for the end-user.  It is this individual photographer or printmaker whom I need to reach for financial support.  I also offer a group sponsorship plan as well.  AaI&A's most likely group sponsors are companies (e.g, a picture framing company) or organizations (e.g, a photography club) that have "no dog in the hunt".  They probably don't sell or manufacture the products AaI&A tests, but their members or customers actively use them and would benefit from a free or discounted membership in AaI&A.  Pro-Imaging.org, an organization of professional photographers, became AaI&A's first group sponsor last September.  The group sponsorship approach may well be the key to AaI&A's success, but I definitely need the help of individual members as well to succeed.  I just have to take it one day at a time.
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> cheers,
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> Mark
> http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
>