Words Words Words

approximate meaning. finding the way. crossing the divide. making a bridge

Two worlds. Two cultures. Everything changes. Everything stays the same.

Finding meaning and having the means to reveal that, to yourself and maybe others. Both the problem and the driver.

at first an observation. What prompts that. Is it a small nit, or does it take a large shaking abruption. Usually crossing currents provoke the most. Change in flows provide great energy, most is wasted, passes on without utility.

So this provoke began when a technician of graphs asks how else to describe what matters about an emulsion. Actually, he wants to complain about a description of a developer. XY people don’t grok PR people.

amateurs need guides; they await the ice-cream truck.

Such as: Fred Picker. https://bwbarlow.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/the-fred-picker-legacy.pdf

These are secondary sources; people I didn’t know, nor did I read until this century. I read them now only because I’m studying the failures of the forums. The staggering load carried by weekend workers. Members of bands that none will remember. These sales force folks sell sweets.

they tell you what you tell yourself: it’s the stuff that makes me better. at least, it’s the stuff i can talk about. like gossip by the fish fryer out at manlake lodge.

no girls says the sign . no words say the words

whether they’d like it based upon your likes…all things taste like chicken to a person of consensus taste

like a spoon in the knife drawer the amateur photographer is, of course, something else by weekday; like cross-dressers, their week sees them one way, their weekend another.

But, then again, my path crossed just now because I was looking for CVI materials. They were found in an archived Picker Newsletter.

Fine Art Photo Supply: FA-1027 is what snapped the string on this topic.

Anthony Giudice sold Fine Art Photo Supply to Photographer’s Formulary for personal reasons.

Fine Art Photo Supply is a new company in Rochester, NY. Much like the old Zone VI Studios, we are a company marketing photographic merchandise and we are photographers ourselves. I have been involved in photography since 1972 (just after I quit my high school basketball team!); and my wife Vicki, who handles the administrative end of the business, has done lots of color commercial photography: 2 books, and over a dozen magazine articles (including 4 covers).

And like most first time, low factor salesmen and entry managers, they move to the extreme. Selling too hard or too soft. They will pass just as all weekenders.

Description is always based upon something else. There is no qualitative, boundless, fully functioning explanation. Not in physics, not in math, certainly not in any developing growing human pursuit including photography, a very self absorbed drawing system.

The color of the silver developed image… what does it mean? We had more options in 1950, but we also had a much more limited vocabulary. Warm. Cold. Developer and paper names didn’t have any basis other than commercial convenience.

How about charts. They always look good. Like something from a math course blackboard.

We call them “characteristic curves” which has to make them readily useable., as well as being beyond just words. Right?

At last. A Table of values. We can put this to use, can’t we?

Yep. If we are using those developers and we have a good working time at 68F, then these provided percent changes to that time should produce the same resulting negative.

This if from 1950. Probably not as useful this year, even with those developers since you won’t be using the lovely films made back then. You can use Ansco 17, particularly if you are doing separations.

of course, just having the words well defined and in a table won’t make them useable, nor used.

this is for an inkjet pigment printer. Note that it does use a pigment — and it seems to get through those tiny jets just fine… this is from a decade ago technology. The dumbwaiters from the forums still think that size defines a colorant.

Purdy pictures certainly seem persuasive. Reading them does require more… picture language is always more demanding.

The colored area is an ICC profile of Dye Transfer colorspace. It is overlaid atop, so you can see how it is contained within, an inkjet pigment printer profile from 2013. A decade ago inkjet printers had wider color range than dye transfer.

Plus, that same inkjet printer calculates out at over 100 years life expectancy before visual difference in color.

Use words that you find useful. Simple enough. The finding is much less certain. Words in all its form make distinctions clear to those experienced in using them. Gaining your own experience; making your own dictionary is just a first necessary step, and the biggest difference between those who ride the hobby horse and those who ride a work horse.


Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.


Paulo Coelho
pictures catch the eye; words the mind
words tell; pictures convince

sidebar: ORTHO LITHO. confused online photo sites, like love and online dating. Ortho means the response of the emulsion; litho is jargon for the original use of lithography — a high contrast, usually thin film. Ilford makes Ortho+ sheet film. Arista sells a lith film which seems refactored from the silk-screen industry. This latter, ortho-lith film is frequently what is being referenced by the onliners. Kodak’s Kodalith was the premier version of this film. It also came in types, one was panchromatic, so there used to be Pan-Litho film. So it was.

chris cooke source walk

what begins as a simple reference to a past process…

always look to the origin story: https://www.chriscookehandprinting.com/about

“I work from Rapideye in Shoreditch, London, but can work elsewhere by arrangement. Get in touch to discuss your project and printing needs.”

from his web, I find a set of very interesting associations. Not his clients as much as his place of work, along with its affiliated places.

Rapid Eye: https://www.rapideye.uk.com/

7 Darkrooms for hire.

And this: https://www.photobookcafe.co.uk/library Photobook Cafe. Reading, meeting, books.

What begins as a name of a printer leads us to a bookstore, and a rental lab.

Holding: serious jello

holding onto jello
the past becomes your mistake

anger is an anchor that pulls you under so far you can’t understand
digital in a chemical forum… 
in a decade it becomes the most used image tool of the same group

One person changes over time on one of the original chemo-photo forums.

the mod takes umbrage, feels insult from the newcomer… he makes this serious.

A newcomer seeks kinship thru conversation about a chosen camera. They bring an opinion of what photography, large format photography is. Google or friendly link blogs sent them to the “place” of repute. Too bad: dispute arises, to the point that they are called a “troll,” that notorious disturber of early internet spaces. Trolls asked questions not for answers, but for induced dissension. Almost every newcomer seems trollish even though they’re just not accustomed to the customs… they don’t know who and how to bow. Over time, they usually leave.. the non-troll. The NT realize they are asking the correct question of the wrong people. Perhaps the wrong time.

Seriously, this forum did discuss things in the “lounge” the members only area that goog/bots don’t browse. Why topics are brought into the large open net isn’t known to me. In the case of this forum of declining membership, they began allowing small format, even digital postings as long as they didn’t involve ‘technical’ discussion. This should mean that they are only allowed to discuss imagery; no tech talk. Sure enough these threads have exploded in length, however, as you should expect, the discussions are about the lens, camera, filter, software… that is, they are technical. These members stumble over anything other than process or purchase.

Their tastes don’t change even though their techniques do. They make the same pictures they always did. They see the same no matter the camera. Their pictures came from the 50s; were perfected before they hit their fifties and can’t change now that they are in their endings.

Blocking others also blocks yourself.