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Art vs Image?? SOOC vs PP? Could we live & let live either way?
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Jan 12, 2019 17:04:01   #
Budgiehawk
 
Actually, maybe you can change the world, one little bit at a time. Any act of kindness can change a person's way of thinking. Many years ago I was pretty depressed. I went to the grocery store to buy tv dinners and picked up turkey because I like turkey. The cashier saw that and thought it meant I had no where to go for Thanksgiving. This young woman I had never met before invited me to her home for Thanksgiving. In fact I was from Canada where Thanksgiving occurs much earlier, but her spontaneous act really lifted my spirits. It is decades later and I still remember her and how her gesture helped get me through some dark times.

As for photography, there are many styles and many reasons for doing it. I dabble in several and am learning by doing that. Nobody should feel bad about their choices. It's a tool, like a pencil.

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Jan 12, 2019 19:31:13   #
bertloomis Loc: Fort Worth, Texas
 
This debate is somewhat interesting to me. For years I shot slides on Kodachrome II. I definitely did not want the picture to look like it did to my eye. To make it to my liking I used a polarizing filter in sunshine and under exposed by up to 2/3 stop to further enhance all colors. I liked that result.

My point is that I was manipulating in camera to get what I thought of as a better result. Today I can do much more of that in PP.

For me a photo is not a Xerox copy. It is my version of the art I see in that scene.

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Jan 12, 2019 22:29:19   #
olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida
 
dione961 wrote:
I was wondering why these things matter so much. But then I realised that even that is OK. Have your own opinion, vision, etc., but maybe, let others have theirs as well??

I've travelled a good part of the world - almost all of it "off the beaten track". I began travelling for a reason: to learn about the lives and views of people outside my own narrow world. I use a camera to capture what I find out there (here) and what I do find is this: there is pure, simple love, and arresting beauty, literally everywhere - even right at home. You don't have to look to find it: you just see it. The camera is my tool for trying to capture it. I haven't worked out how to show other people what I'm finding, but that's my vision: to show the love and beauty that is absolutely everywhere around us, that we are part of. Every image I make is an effort to show this.

I don't think of my efforts as art, but as a story. I am trying hard to learn how to get most things "right" (fraught as that term is) before I press the shutter, because I have no PP skills or software.

Yet it seems as though it should be OK for others to see their work (or anyone's work) as art, or not; and to think SOOC is "pure", or not, or PP as "inevitable" or not, and so on. Provided it's done respectfully, maybe even thoughtfully, all such views should be OK to share, especially on this forum.

So, at great risk of being labelled a hypocrite for even asking the question, is there a way we can all just live and let live?
I was wondering why these things matter so much. ... (show quote)


I would much prefer that you describe. As other noble sages on this site have suggested, perhaps a disconnect from the mainstream on this site to pursue those things that really interest you, and avoid falling (like I often do) into arguments I don't even need to participate in. In your title; Art vs Image?? SOOC vs PP? Could we live & let live either way? Surely we should, it is all photography after all.....not someone's ego trip. Enjoy honing your craft, I am going to do just that!!!!

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Jan 12, 2019 22:57:37   #
AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire
 
olemikey wrote:
I would much prefer that you describe. As other noble sages on this site have suggested, perhaps a disconnect from the mainstream on this site to pursue those things that really interest you, and avoid falling (like I often do) into arguments I don't even need to participate in. In your title; Art vs Image?? SOOC vs PP? Could we live & let live either way? Surely we should, it is all photography after all.....not someone's ego trip. Enjoy honing your craft, I am going to do just that!!!!
I would much prefer that you describe. As other no... (show quote)




Wisdom.

Whatever gear you work with, you only need to work on being your best and on improving your own standards.

Andy

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Jan 13, 2019 00:22:16   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
AndyH wrote:
Color slides were SOOC only if you were showing them to a roomful of friends vicariously enjoying your summer vacation. If you made prints for display or sharing, processing was certainly involved, including control of exposure, contrast, and even other aspects like hue and white balance.

The dynamic ranges of transparency films were much larger than negative films when projected, but compression was nearly impossible until digital PP became available.

Andy




Vericolor Internegative Film was my friend I loved to hate...

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Jan 13, 2019 00:34:27   #
anotherview Loc: California
 
The field of photography has room for all.
dione961 wrote:
I was wondering why these things matter so much. But then I realised that even that is OK. Have your own opinion, vision, etc., but maybe, let others have theirs as well??

I've travelled a good part of the world - almost all of it "off the beaten track". I began travelling for a reason: to learn about the lives and views of people outside my own narrow world. I use a camera to capture what I find out there (here) and what I do find is this: there is pure, simple love, and arresting beauty, literally everywhere - even right at home. You don't have to look to find it: you just see it. The camera is my tool for trying to capture it. I haven't worked out how to show other people what I'm finding, but that's my vision: to show the love and beauty that is absolutely everywhere around us, that we are part of. Every image I make is an effort to show this.

I don't think of my efforts as art, but as a story. I am trying hard to learn how to get most things "right" (fraught as that term is) before I press the shutter, because I have no PP skills or software.

Yet it seems as though it should be OK for others to see their work (or anyone's work) as art, or not; and to think SOOC is "pure", or not, or PP as "inevitable" or not, and so on. Provided it's done respectfully, maybe even thoughtfully, all such views should be OK to share, especially on this forum.

So, at great risk of being labelled a hypocrite for even asking the question, is there a way we can all just live and let live?
I was wondering why these things matter so much. ... (show quote)

Reply
Jan 13, 2019 00:37:59   #
AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire
 
burkphoto wrote:


Vericolor Internegative Film was my friend I loved to hate...


I had a friend who worked in a prolab at a mass market level. He would undoubtedly share your sentiments!

As a semi pro of that era, I relied on people like you and him to create my profit margin. Custom lab pricing would have made my bottom line red in many cases, at least when it came to color work. BW images paid me about two bucks an hour for my time.

Andy

Reply
 
 
Jan 13, 2019 15:32:19   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
AndyH wrote:
I had a friend who worked in a prolab at a mass market level. He would undoubtedly share your sentiments!

As a semi pro of that era, I relied on people like you and him to create my profit margin. Custom lab pricing would have made my bottom line red in many cases, at least when it came to color work. BW images paid me about two bucks an hour for my time.

Andy


Yep. Back in those days, 1985 to 1995, we were mostly a school portrait photofinisher with about $20 Million in annual sales. We had a volume mentality, as less than 1% of our work was custom printed. But most of the rest was photographed under rigid lighting, so it could be machine printed at an average analyzation setting for each 100' roll. That work ran through 30 home-brew (!) printers that cost about $150,000 each to build over a five year period. 120/220/35 perf was individually analyzed and printed on five to eight Kodak S printers and our own two custom-built short roll printers. We had about a dozen other printers for big prints, and four APAC contact printers for composites. We had a couple of Kodak Professional Video Analyzing Computers for density and color analysis. (PVACs are laughable now!)

I set up and ran the class composite printing workflow from 1988 to 1992. The composites were made from paste-ups of contact prints from 35mm negatives, and reduction prints made from 46mm negatives. These were copied on Vericolor Internegative sheet film, with a one minute exposure! Then they were sandwiched with line film masks and printed on the APACs.

We bought that Vericolor Internegative film in bulk rolls and slit it ourselves into 5", 8", and 11" rolls, which were then "sheeted" (cut) into 5x7, 6x8, 8x10, and 11x14 sheets. The camera we used was a 14' overhead rail graphic arts copy camera with a vacuum back and 4000 watts of quartz halogen. We had a $50,000 Refrema dip-and-dunk film processor we used for sheet film and 120/220. Composites were printed in roll form on one of three PAKO CP6000 leader belt processors at 32' per minute. Titles were set on a Mac in PageMaker and printed on line film using a Linotype Hell 12" laser imagesetter. We made about 250,000 composites each year. Every one of them was a "break even" or "loss leader" product designed to get our dealers into a school. The bigger school portrait companies used them as an edge.

It sounds impressive until you realize that our biggest competitor was about 40 times bigger than we were!

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Jan 13, 2019 17:15:50   #
AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire
 
burkphoto wrote:
Yep. Back in those days, 1985 to 1995, we were mostly a school portrait photofinisher with about $20 Million in annual sales. We had a volume mentality, as less than 1% of our work was custom printed. But most of the rest was photographed under rigid lighting, so it could be machine printed at an average analyzation setting for each 100' roll. That work ran through 30 home-brew (!) printers that cost about $150,000 each to build over a five year period. 120/220/35 perf was individually analyzed and printed on five to eight Kodak S printers and our own two custom-built short roll printers. We had about a dozen other printers for big prints, and four APAC contact printers for composites. We had a couple of Kodak Professional Video Analyzing Computers for density and color analysis. (PVACs are laughable now!)

I set up and ran the class composite printing workflow from 1988 to 1992. The composites were made from paste-ups of contact prints from 35mm negatives, and reduction prints made from 46mm negatives. These were copied on Vericolor Internegative sheet film, with a one minute exposure! Then they were sandwiched with line film masks and printed on the APACs.

We bought that Vericolor Internegative film in bulk rolls and slit it ourselves into 5", 8", and 11" rolls, which were then "sheeted" (cut) into 5x7, 6x8, 8x10, and 11x14 sheets. The camera we used was a 14' overhead rail graphic arts copy camera with a vacuum back and 4000 watts of quartz halogen. We had a $50,000 Refrema dip-and-dunk film processor we used for sheet film and 120/220. Composites were printed in roll form on one of three PAKO CP6000 leader belt processors at 32' per minute. Titles were set on a Mac in PageMaker and printed on line film using a Linotype Hell 12" laser imagesetter. We made about 250,000 composites each year. Every one of them was a "break even" or "loss leader" product designed to get our dealers into a school. The bigger school portrait companies used them as an edge.

It sounds impressive until you realize that our biggest competitor was about 40 times bigger than we were!
Yep. Back in those days, 1985 to 1995, we were mos... (show quote)


Great insight into that era, Bill!

Thanks for sharing it.

Andy

Reply
Jan 13, 2019 17:25:14   #
anotherview Loc: California
 
Wow, you sure've had an interesting career in film photography. I feel a little dazzled by all the details and processes involved. Digital seems so much simpler.
burkphoto wrote:
Yep. Back in those days, 1985 to 1995, we were mostly a school portrait photofinisher with about $20 Million in annual sales. We had a volume mentality, as less than 1% of our work was custom printed. But most of the rest was photographed under rigid lighting, so it could be machine printed at an average analyzation setting for each 100' roll. That work ran through 30 home-brew (!) printers that cost about $150,000 each to build over a five year period. 120/220/35 perf was individually analyzed and printed on five to eight Kodak S printers and our own two custom-built short roll printers. We had about a dozen other printers for big prints, and four APAC contact printers for composites. We had a couple of Kodak Professional Video Analyzing Computers for density and color analysis. (PVACs are laughable now!)

I set up and ran the class composite printing workflow from 1988 to 1992. The composites were made from paste-ups of contact prints from 35mm negatives, and reduction prints made from 46mm negatives. These were copied on Vericolor Internegative sheet film, with a one minute exposure! Then they were sandwiched with line film masks and printed on the APACs.

We bought that Vericolor Internegative film in bulk rolls and slit it ourselves into 5", 8", and 11" rolls, which were then "sheeted" (cut) into 5x7, 6x8, 8x10, and 11x14 sheets. The camera we used was a 14' overhead rail graphic arts copy camera with a vacuum back and 4000 watts of quartz halogen. We had a $50,000 Refrema dip-and-dunk film processor we used for sheet film and 120/220. Composites were printed in roll form on one of three PAKO CP6000 leader belt processors at 32' per minute. Titles were set on a Mac in PageMaker and printed on line film using a Linotype Hell 12" laser imagesetter. We made about 250,000 composites each year. Every one of them was a "break even" or "loss leader" product designed to get our dealers into a school. The bigger school portrait companies used them as an edge.

It sounds impressive until you realize that our biggest competitor was about 40 times bigger than we were!
Yep. Back in those days, 1985 to 1995, we were mos... (show quote)

Reply
Jan 13, 2019 19:33:56   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
anotherview wrote:
Wow, you sure've had an interesting career in film photography. I feel a little dazzled by all the details and processes involved. Digital seems so much simpler.


Digital is much more fun, capable, flexible, and efficient... but it eventually killed off much of our market.

A big wave of lab workers and photographers could not make the switch. They either could not, weren’t, or refused to become, computer-literate.

One of our customers checked into a psychiatric ward and sold his business. I had attempted to train him on our new process — for the second time — the week before.

Reply
 
 
Jan 13, 2019 20:28:57   #
anotherview Loc: California
 
Yes, analog to digital presents a shift and a switch. Besides, the beginning of the digital era looked vague, promissory, and ellusive to a nuts-and-bolts type like me. I preferred electromechanical devices. The digital change reminds me of going from vacuum tubes to transistors, from the large and glowing to the invisible. But now I am a digital devotee.
burkphoto wrote:
Digital is much more fun, capable, flexible, and efficient... but it eventually killed off much of our market.

A big wave of lab workers and photographers could not make the switch. They either could not, weren’t, or refused to become, computer-literate.

One of our customers checked into a psychiatric ward and sold his business. I had attempted to train him on our new process — for the second time — the week before.

Reply
Jan 13, 2019 20:38:16   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
anotherview wrote:
Yes, analog to digital presents a shift and a switch. Besides, the beginning of the digital era looked vague, promissory, and ellusive to a nuts-and-bolts type like me. I preferred electromechanical devices. The digital change reminds me of going from vacuum tubes to transistors, from the large and glowing to the invisible. But now I am a digital devotee.



Reply
Jan 14, 2019 07:52:16   #
joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois
 
dione961 wrote:
I was wondering why these things matter so much. But then I realised that even that is OK. Have your own opinion, vision, etc., but maybe, let others have theirs as well??

I've travelled a good part of the world - almost all of it "off the beaten track". I began travelling for a reason: to learn about the lives and views of people outside my own narrow world. I use a camera to capture what I find out there (here) and what I do find is this: there is pure, simple love, and arresting beauty, literally everywhere - even right at home. You don't have to look to find it: you just see it. The camera is my tool for trying to capture it. I haven't worked out how to show other people what I'm finding, but that's my vision: to show the love and beauty that is absolutely everywhere around us, that we are part of. Every image I make is an effort to show this.

I don't think of my efforts as art, but as a story. I am trying hard to learn how to get most things "right" (fraught as that term is) before I press the shutter, because I have no PP skills or software.

Yet it seems as though it should be OK for others to see their work (or anyone's work) as art, or not; and to think SOOC is "pure", or not, or PP as "inevitable" or not, and so on. Provided it's done respectfully, maybe even thoughtfully, all such views should be OK to share, especially on this forum.

So, at great risk of being labelled a hypocrite for even asking the question, is there a way we can all just live and let live?
I was wondering why these things matter so much. ... (show quote)


None of this really matters.

Reply
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