From: James Irelan <james@redweather.com>
Subject: Re: Darkroom lament and Origin RE: [Digital BW] Re:What is a Giclee.... straight from the source
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, October 13, 2008, 8:29 PM
Shoshanna,
This is a good post from someone obviously qualified to make these
observations.
I first fell in love with photography when I saw my first image come
up in the developer tray in about 1990. I needed an art as part of
my curriculum for nursing school, always wanted to photograph, had my
first credit card, got a used Nikon FM and a normal lens, signed up
for a class in what turned out to be an excellent photo department,
and bam. I was off like a rocket. I think I worked harder at
photography than I did at nursing. I certainly felt more passion for
it. I bugged everybody at the local photo stores with questions,
read everything, read all about densitometry, read Phil Davis,
couldn't understand what the hell, read it again...
There was something about the darkroom. Something about it. It was
magical to me. I spent hours in there, whole days. I ventured
outside only when I realized I could no longer put off going to the
bathroom. Far from apprehending the darkroom as smelly, I loved the
smell of it. Weird, maybe. I made test after test, trying to make a
good print. And when I made my final print, I was thrilled. "Look
at THAT!!", I'd say to myself out loud. It matter none to me that my
efforts were doubtlessly pedestrian compared to those of an
accomplished printer. I was creating beauty. My love of photography
was always driven by my love of printing.
I've made digital prints which have also thrilled me in a similar
manner. I am not going to go back to the wet darkroom, for a number
of reasons. However, while I feel that the quality of prints can be
equalled and exceeded by the digital process, I have to say that the
experience of producing a print in the wet darkroom... well, it's
just not the same with digital. Maybe that's because the wet
darkroom was my first experience with print making. Maybe it was the
meditative atmosphere of being alone there in the dark with my amber
safelight. My girlfriend at the time started calling me "mole man".
There really was a whole experiential aspect to it no longer
available with my nice new inkjet printers.
And then we come to the part of your post where you discuss the ease
of snapping and printing and becoming an instant photographer. I
have never been a pro photog, but the same phenomenon exists in
music, and I have been (and still am, occasionally) a professional
musician. Today the digital world has given us all sorts of tools
where people who are not even musicians, who couldn't play a job on
an instrument if their life depended on it, can put together
"tracks", using loops and presets, canned drums, and all sorts of
things that someone else has provided for them, and then declare
themselves musicians. And the sad part is: the public often agrees
with them.
With these facile tools comes the ease of use and a range of options
and capabilities never existing before. The power of the tools
brings along with it people who... well, if they had to print the way
Edward Weston did... wouldn't be able to. I mean, wouldn't be able
to even get an image. If they had to pick up an instrument and play
Happy Birthday, they couldn't. Literally couldn't, but they might
actually have a reputation of some sort or other based on tools that
makes music for them, and they just sort of organize things.
I guess, as Bruce Hornsby sang, "that's just the way it is..."
James Irelan
On Oct 13, 2008, at 7:03 PM, Shoshanna Moser wrote:
> Over the years I had to set up more-or-less "permanent"
darkrooms for
> myself in eleven different countries, and temporary (for 2-3 months or
> less) darkrooms in at least 40 other cities, towns, and rural
> byways in
> some interesting and sometimes dangerous corners of the world-- with
> very few exceptions, it was a question of what was possible, rather
> than
> what was optimal. Decent ventilation was a luxury, and one only rarely
> available.
>
> I never particularly minded the problematic aspects of these
> arrangements, as my focus was on the images I was creating, but the
> environments in which I usually found myself working were
> challenging at
> best, and seriously hazardous at worst-- in one unforgettably
> disastrous
> (and, from my perspective, tragic) instance, more than twenty years of
> negatives were completely destroyed when the darkroom was rapidly
> flooded by burst pipes from overhead.
>
> What I was doing was often exciting, and always satisfying on many
> levels, but the pictures I was creating were not made better by the
> technical and physical difficulties involved in the darkroom end of
> the
> work.
>
> Yes, today I do have numerous boxes of different sizes and surfaces of
> paper from different manufacturers, requiring differing profiles, but
> not only can I easily keep them plainly labeled, neatly stacked on
> shelves, and easily accessible, but I can open them without worrying
> that the slightest glancing blow of light will send $150 or more down
> the drain-- I can open them IN BROAD DAYLIGHT! And should it be
> necessary to cut the paper down to a smaller size, I no longer have to
> do it in the dark with a guillotine-style paper cutter.
>
> My ink cartridges do have expiration dates, but these have never yet
> proved to be a problem, and I no longer have to be forever labeling
> and
> then checking the dates on bottles of developing solutions, fixers,
> and
> a range of other useful, exotic, and incredibly deadly processing,
> post-processing, and retouching cocktails.
>
> Rather than doing very precise, eye-straining work in virtually no
> light, my home office is bathed in sunshine. Rather than having to
> maintain strictly careful procedures and keep my hands gloved to
> protect
> them from toxic chemicals, I can safely and contentedly enjoy a cup of
> Jamaican Blue Mountain-- and while one of my Epsons is turning out a
> perfect print, I can relax by gazing out the windows at the ocean, the
> raccoons playing on my deck, and the deer nuzzling the rose bushes.
>
> I might also add that, left all on their own, the prints dry to a
> beautiful finish and I no longer need to be placing wet prints on the
> very hot metal surfaces of print dryers and tightly battening down
> their
> canvas covers to keep the prints from buckling.
>
> And rather than having my pictures entrusted to the vulnerable form of
> film negatives-- perpetual hostages to fortune-- my digital negatives
> are regularly backed up on four sets of DVDs made by four different
> manufacturers. One set is kept in a safe deposit box at the bank.
>
> I still own an impressive collection of high-end darkroom equipment--
> all carefully packed away in boxes. Don't ask me why, because I'll
> never use it again. I feel no desire to use it again. But someday I'll
> know what to do with it-- perhaps one day I'll come across some young
> person who wants to learn the traditional methods, and I'll know that
> this is the person to whom to give it. But in the meantime, it waits,
> and I continue moving forward.
>
> That said, the brave new world in which we operate is not without
> its flaws.
>
> Ten years or so ago, when digital photography was first really
> beginning
> to make its impact felt in the consumer market, I mistakenly believed
> that it would be a marvelous gift to young, beginning photographers
> who
> would no longer be constrained by the financial considerations of film
> and commercial processing or the demands of a traditional darkroom. I
> was very wrong, because what I thought would be the freedom to explore
> and discover became, instead, the license to be sloppy, undisciplined,
> and mindless.
>
> Instead of considering each shot, thinking about angle and light,
> perspective and exposure, color, surface, and texture, the
> determinedly
> and willfully ignorant simply turn their cameras in the desired
> direction and snap away. Having never learned anything about editing,
> they post to the web their 100+ nearly-identical shots, with no idea
> whatsoever about what makes a picture good, bad, or indifferent. Then,
> on email lists, they announce what they've done and ask for comments--
> which translates as "tell me how wonderful I am!", as they will
> tolerate
> nothing but unstinting praise, free of any hint of criticism. And
> that's exactly what they receive-- from others as ignorant as
> themselves, because those who actually know and could tell them
> everything they're doing wrong have long since discovered that in this
> day and age of preserving self-esteem above all else, it's
> unacceptable
> to tell anyone he's done something badly.
>
> If this strikes anyone as harsh, that's too damned bad.
>
> I'm glad that the people from whom I learned were demanding, critical,
> and not at all inclined to let me get away with sloppy efforts to
> which
> no creative thought or technical knowledge had been brought. I'm also
> glad to have worked for a series of hard-nosed, nasty-tempered editors
> who knew what they wanted and accepted nothing less.
>
> I don't respect what's going on today, and I'm appalled by the
fact
> that
> everyone who buys a DSLR seems to feel that owning the equipment is
> all
> the justification required to identify himself as a
"photographer".
> All
> these "well I just bought a camera and I'd like to make some
money at
> it" posts are not only insulting as hell to all of those who've
> actually
> learned their business and paid their dues, but also irresponsibly put
> at risk the photographic record of the weddings, anniversaries,
> graduations, christenings, bar mitzvahs, and other special,
> once-in-a-lifetime events that the innocent and naive may foolishly
> hire
> them to shoot. The results can be very sad indeed.
>
> Photography is currently experiencing a transition that is not without
> its painful and difficult aspects, and part of the process seems to
> involve the mistaken belief that this is something "anyone can
do."
> And, of course, reduced to its most basic mechanics-- pointing the
> camera and pushing a button-- there's some truth to that. But pointing
> the camera and pushing a button is about as far as the vast
> majority of
> people will ever go-- and that's not photography, no matter how much
> they tell themselves that it is.
>
> In the long run, the novelty and continuing advances of digital
> technology will become less and less a beguiling distraction, and the
> focus will return-- as well it should-- to the quality of the pictures
> being created. Those who've put the time, effort, and energy into
> learning what they're doing, inviting, withstanding, and benefiting
> from
> tough criticism, developing their skills, expanding their abilities,
> discovering and working at what they do best, and understanding that
> quantity means nothing if not accompanied by quality, will eventually
> evolve into photographers... the real McCoy.
>
> The rest will no doubt continue to delude themselves... but not
> anyone else.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Shoshanna
> Gold Beach - South Coast of Oregon
> http://www.pbase.com/shoshanna
> http://mindworksunlimited.com/shoshannaspeak/
>
> E Neilsen wrote:
> >
> > I am saddened that so many of you suffered in smelly darkrooms. Good
> > ventilation is the difference between enjoyable darkroom time and
> >
> > a dark dangerous place. But you missed the point, the previous post
> > was more
> > about word creation and I was associating the smell with the
> words origin.
> > People could walk into my studio darkroom and smell but a hint of
> anything
> > chemical and many wondered if I really did make all those prints
> there.
> >
> > How many different boxes of digital paper do you have and the
> associated
> > sample packs which for the most part are not individually labeled so
> > after a
> > few years goes by you have more scrapes of paper that you don't
> know than
> > do? At least with a paper safe they were out of sight out of
> mind ; )
> >
> > Eric
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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