Category: film

Equipment Matters?!

Posted on Posted in A Symbol Life, artgame, bead game, film, Getting Stuff

Does equipment matter?

Equipment does matter! — sometimes it does; sometimes it doesn’t. For most people, even photographers, photographic equipment gets in their way, Even if their way is the standardized imagery of the Kodakery.

Equipment Poor

is the phrase once used as epithet about those professionals who bought more equipment than they ever used; buying so much they rotated credit cards. They were made poor by their falling for the pitch of the Camera Monthlies sold at the camera counter. Salesmen could be relied upon to inform their customers about improvements to their vision that lay in their future — oh, and we have layaway.

Lollipops also fell into the trap of buying for something sometime in the future. These people were the ones caught off-guard when the tide changed.

Lollipops were the single person lab barely able to support themself. They may have had aspirations of becoming a mom-n-pop. Lollipops eventually realize they’re just a hobbyist on the brink of becoming a hobo. For most, the only professional thing they did was get a re-sale license

— ANSWERING every question the same. applying one answer for every situation. see it in one case, not the other. variable in the Sinar, not in the souping. BL mode. Cost of souping, not knowing that the person used the burst system to save more than direct cost, and that in that approach they hired an assistant, gaining even more work relief: they could answer phones and other small tasks. [ link site ]

two pathways taken. The first is more popular than the second. Note the view counts.

One sells — they are trying to make a living off of the adventure of photography

the other is the much harder, less certain way. Sometimes it works.

We will never remember the salesmen.

ming smith filmday

also: how the format trips many

Calvin and the Shallow Market

Posted on Posted in film, Getting Stuff, lost horizon, the arc, The Biz

The try-buy: one order to try, then done.

A one-buy try and done. The curious will lead you into market deserts — a product for his own use if more useful.

First Factor of Success: willing to fail

The pigment market exists because of the failures of …. nope. It exists as an extension of the alt-photography born in the alternative 60s. Finding a different way, a distinct path was a significant landscape of the 60s conversion of photography and art. Pigment printing, gum or carbon is advanced as being archival, long-lasting, and durable; far more lasting than dye-based photography.

“After two years of research, the Natural Pigment color pastes are now on sale. I also restocked the synthetic pigments, and updated the yellow. “ 2022

I thought the pigments didn’t succeed in market, but reading his current site, they are all in stock, in different packaging than before, ready to ship.(Jun 2023) ‘rl’

Often, shallow markets are maintained by persons supplementing their worklife, bringing skills of one field into another. Electronics crosses into chemical darkroom.

// pools: why don’t they readily form? LFF /Kodak requires proper intermediate — success bridge gap// age-skill

ability to recover. resilience after failure. time to fail. Salvich/Efke ..

//how does Backer Market work, succeed in funding success.

Can it support you, how well, for how long. Can you grow; more people, more products.

Why aren’t others making, doing what you do? Questions any investor would ask; ask yourself. Sometimes the only answer is that it is the only thing you can do to satisfy the deeper part of yourself. That part unreached by financial analysis.

Your reason can be, as many people’s are: you hangout with interesting people.

  • Moe, W., and Fader, P. (2003). Using advance purchase orders to forecast new product sales. Mark. Sci. 22:146. doi: 10.1287/mksc.21.3.347.138
  • Mollick, E. (2012). The dynamics of crowdfunding: determinants of success and failure. J. Bus. Ventur. 29, 1–16. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2088298
  • Mollick, E. (2014). The dynamics of crowdfunding: an exploratory study. J. Bus. Ventur. 29, 1–16. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2013.06.005
  • Burtch, G., Ghose, A., and Wattal, S. (2016). Secret admirers: an empirical examination of information hiding and contribution dynamics in online crowdfunding. Inf. Syst. Res. 27, 478–496. doi: 10.1287/isre.2016.0642
  • Burtch, G., Hong, Y., and Liu, D. (2018). The role of provision points in online crowdfunding. J. Manag. Inf. Syst. 35, 117–144. doi: 10.1080/07421222.2018.1440764
  • Butticè, V., Colombo, M. G., and Wright, M. (2017). Serial crowdfunding, social capital, and project success. Entrep. Theory Pract. 41, 183–207. doi: 10.1111/ etap.12271

Dead Cat Bounce: Tetenal

Posted on Posted in film, morning wood, old bones, olden ways, the meta

In 2018, Tetenal failed causing the photo-world to shimmy and shake. Was this the end, or just a climax in a potboiler.

Tetenal came back only to fail again in 2023. This is the way at the end of life. The crash is never complete; until there is no where else to fall.

Chemistry is the profit of the chemical photography business. Emulsions are there so that chemicals will be bought, used, and replaced. Cameras are there for the lenses and films, etc. No chemical means no chemical darkroom; means no paper. The way is clear. It is just lost in the fog of romantic versions of truth. Few want to admit they are on a dead horse; fewer will put that horse down.

This is not a work-horse, it is only a hobby-horse, as such it will not last. Farriers live because horses don’t have to be made, they do the work themselves, unlike emulsions and XTOL.

Reportedly, Tetenal spent about €500,000 (~$574,000) to acquire the license to produce CD3 and CD4 color developers — and apparently they split the bill with Fuji to save money. That is one of the reasons why Unicolor chemistry, for example, is not available in the E.U. No small company or startup could afford such certification and thus Tetenal is the only manufacturer of CD3 and CD4 within the European Union.

<< from 2018 report of Tetenal’s death.

Kodak relied upon Tetenal for Xtol, HC-110, and ECN chemicals.

Why the company failed with full orders, even backorders… the hopeful thought it would be brought back to life, since there is so much vigor in the “recovering analog community” — like alcoholics giving each other bad advice over bad coffee.

It failed again because there aren’t enough multiples of profit in each sale, and there aren’t sufficient sales to maintain a fully managed industry. Gas stations on the interstate make more money in a quarter than Kodak+Ilford make in a year. Fujifilm is the only company that is built upon a large profit foundation; that is from other sectors of its well managed organization.

Adox is claiming, hoping with that claim, that their ability to maintain chemical making will sustain them. This as they also seem to regularly acknowledge that there is little profit in BW paper. Profits from their chemistry funds their research and development of other product lines (assuming color film).

The arc has been clear for more than a decade: people use roll film intending to scan it. Some are beginning to see the other way.

— If I need a camera for film AND a digital camera to scan that film…. why don’t I skip the mechanical/chemical step, going directly to the digital camera?

Might just be bragging rights. Some claim to life-forces unseen. Anyway, people continue to pray for anther Dead Cat Raising.