Category: da net

Gossip As Knowledge

Posted on Posted in da net, M&Ms, the fora

Specialist forums occupy a large part of the internet; they are presumed to provide a place for increasing the knowledge of a field. Photography has always been an “outlet” for the temporary, ie, weekend artist. Serving that thirst, acting as bridge between seller and consumer has rewarded many people with small skill but large appetite. Those folks formerly  put on workshops, now they host web forums for the seeker.

as wee all know: There’s a Seeker Born Every Minute.

LFF Thread
thread link here

 What Knowledge

Caution: restricting topic restricts growth, resulting in in-breeding, as well as in-fighting

If you restrict your discussion to technical in a field with no growth, you have no growth. You have reached saturation. Adding more examples of addition doesn’t increase the field of mathematics.

The newer members come to the photography forums for two broad reasons. They contribute, first as question – easy ones. But who answers them? The stays are likely the ones to answer first, and frequently. Who are they? What questions can they answer; do they answer?

Q: point me to technical, and aesthetic books limited to Large Format

The first responder was a high-post participant. He provided the technical book list, which was repeated by several of the later posters, who, apparently, hadn’t read the answers already provided.

  • ‘Looking at Photographs’ John Szarkowski, 1973 MOMA
  • ‘Landscape: Theory’ published in 1980 by Lustrum Press
  • ‘The Nature of Photographs’ by Stephen Shore. 1998
  • “Andreas Gursky’ MOMA catalog from 2001, essay by Peter Galassi

28 year span of opinion about photographs. The time period covered the rise, as well as the changed status of photography as an artform held within established museums. It is a good answer – its only problem – it is incomplete, but it will not be added to by the Large Format participants. They don’t grow that way, preferring instead the procrastinator’s aesthetics. They switched from answering the question to opining about a (famous) photographer atop his car with, keeping it large format oriented, a big camera.

Enter the discussion about Dog Houses in the Boardroom. When a topic the meeting members can’t discuss is broached, there is little discussion, however, when a topic of little consequence is raised, everyone can, and will, offer a point on the matter. Group unity with the result being that no important matter is ever settled; no important question answered. This produces an organization that is comfortable but static; passive. It is at its end stage.

Film is dying  because the Forums are Dead-ends – or, maybe Film is at a dead-end so the forums are the gathering ground of the bachelor herds – those without heirs, just stains and limp standards.

What More

There are two current resources that could be used to enlarge the imagination of a View Camera photographer:

  • “Lori Nix — The Power of Nature” ISBN-10: 3868322744

  • “Unspeaking Likeness”  Photographs by Arne Svenson.  ISBN-10: 1931885729

 

Ciba Died?

Posted on Posted in da net, Getting Stuff, morning wood, the Lab1 Comment

Often old processes die leaving only a few practitioners remaining like soldiers on an abandoned, forgotten island.

amateurs built Ciba; amateurs killed Ciba. 

Ilford Imaging Switzerland’s bankruptcy was in December 2013.

The gossip boys ,on the barstools of the internet ,hang out telling tales of the past. Easy for them to miss the changes in currents around that lost island, since they never were there, and they don’t know how to swim.

NOTE- if you’re APUG, or Large Format Forum registered, you may not use this material. Please, leave this site now!

Big Name Ciba

would you rather ask a thousand people who don’t know the answer, or 1 person who does?

Asking the rights question of the right person is the only way to a correct answer.

burkett
Christopher Burkett

Burkett is a big name in Ciba prints. He is a long time landscape photographer, so should be ready reference for the Formulaic photographers. He is represented in many of the destination galleries. Even a lesser known photographer knows the Ciba answer. And he is a popup exhibitor.

vincent
Douglas Vincent

A Last Lab

I doubt they print anymore, but at one time Richard Jackson’s “Hance Lab” was a major ciba lab for exhibition and portfolio work.  Richard has moved on, preferring digital prints. So, just as the best Dye Transfer printers moved to digital, at first with regret, later with a smile, even a joyous twinkle.

The (Usual) Places

B&H … they have partial supply (June 2016)

Dr. Damien Moigno DFI

What’s A Poor Boy To Do?

It will die, Ciba — this year (2016) will be the last year of chemical manufacture. The interest in this, like most color processes, is vapor. Dye transfer has come and gone 3 times in the past 15 years because people talk instead of working. They would rather brag, and boast about their exploits. What they really do is get fat on the barstool, talking about their glorious  gift.

A kit for home processing costs p30kit

The last Ilford directions (PDFs) are:

As always —

  • use it or lose it.
  • when it’s gone, rebuild, or move on.
  • don’t trust the first answer.
  • don’t accept conventional wisdom, unless you want the conventional outcome
  • sometimes, things are talked to death.

dig until you get deep enough to see light

Others writing Ciba’s epitaph: https://association-cibachrome.com/patrimoine/technologie/