Category: the fora

all that stuff people say online

Masking Ignorance

Posted on Posted in da net, dye transfer, overnight notes, the fora1 Comment

among the drewids

some names are changed to protect the foolish from direct embarrassment
=========================
// post of equipment available for sale by friend and expert//

// then Call
I’ll try to keep my ears open. I am frequently in correspondence with young folks wanting to learn general masking, either b&w, or now, color neg. Condit gear was the best, and with some patience, someone will need it. I’ve successfully turned some of them on to similar offerings.
Getit while you can! Might be a good idea to note general condition, since matched, clean gear
is what one needs. Are the various punches and registration pins all matched? Drew

// then Response
Dear Drew,

Forgive my obtuseness, but I’m not sure what “matched” means. I can
tell you that this is all gear I was using to make 4 x 5 separations
for the past 20 years, so if that answers your question, good. If
not, you’ll have to put in terms I understand.

Clean? Of course it’s not clean. It’s darkroom equipment that’s been
in use for two decades by me and who knows how long before that (I
got it used). It works just fine, but cosmetically? It’s used. So
far as I could ever tell, nothing is damaged, save for the broken end
on one of the four glass inserts (two duplicate sets) that I
mentioned in the original e-mail, which doesn’t intrude into the
working area for 4 x 5 seps.

Again, though, I may be misunderstanding what you’re concerned about.

If someone is seriously interested, I can make photographs and send them along.

I’d much rather sell it through our circle than put it up on eBay.
Much less hassle, and I prefer to deal with friends rather than
strangers (or, at least, acquaintances of friends).

——– added edits from notepad.

 lookers lurkers
 zombies
 

 ratio: 178 / 20
 atLuLa claim 1.2 mm  yet most onlin 750 in 2008 april 07
 

 all about camera
 

 abstraction:
 What lens mostly used for abstract or macro with LF?
 
 he first one reminds me of an astro-photograph, a nebula or some-such.
 ==============
 Ultrastable color system of Charles Berger, and about Tod Gangler of Seattle, and perhaps John Bentley
 ============
 ///
 why they resist change
 sunk cost. lost opportunity. failed skillset.
 location dependent subjects
 opposed to loud space. eye movement
 Lik Briot LuLa style is a shock to their reverence. closet conservatives
 

 Re: Ansel Adams: Do you fight or embrace his influence on your landscapes?
 As I think Robert Adams said somewhere (might be "Beauty in Photography" or it might have been in personal correspondence), photography is always new because the world we photograph is always new from moment to changing moment. But he was big on the idea that photography should be about the world and not our own petty preoccupations.
 Thanks,
 Kirk
 parulr
 My bigger point with all this ... that the more you're aware of your influences, the more choice you have in how to respond to them. 
 One choice is to actively expand the sphere of your influences. Which I think is called education.
 — early(iest) post
 aug 2004 about schneider 210mm lens
 and the only active “expert” merg ross
 aug 2002 begins with request for shopping source

Expert seeking sales counter job.

doormouse retires. the pela fella

Hob Snobbin Large Format Style

Posted on Posted in as written, Carp Fishing, da net, fauxtons, the fora, the meta1 Comment

Denny’s house of quits, bungles, booze — grand slams. An exploration in quits and stays.

So long. Been less than great.

The thread includes appearances from the main character types on the grand slam Large Format Forum. The main actor, the prompt for yet another caution post is the man who can’t afford photoshop cause his company doesn’t pay for internet.

Drowning my sorrows. 

snobby hobby

The cobbler bench of the dread thread.

Only one person said goodbye; took no offense. The others piled on like locker jocks at junior high. Of course the moderator proclaimed his effete status. Top of the heap of the snobby hobby — holding his glass atop the fat leg. Gotta love the selfie-ness of his life. Just another privileged consumer who should be exercising their legs instead of their privilege; their ego existence.

The burst responders provided:

Apparently not here, since I reported the OP two minutes after it went up with the suggestion that his whining “grand exit” post be deleted. Since Oren let it stand, I suppose he decided there’s more value in emphasizing the rules than hiding violations of them.  

by Sal Santamaura

A person who needs definitions is also one dependent upon rules — verified, enforced. If you, the owner’s agent won’t do it, it falls to me the wandering poster.

Who remains?

The end game is a swap shop at the end of the hobby. It is run by Moodle managers, redundant Government contractors, engineers that became ‘special project’ managers. These are the gatekeepers.

what remains. who

the ash. the residue. is inactive. but the key of the  gathering. the structure revealed by stress.

skeleton begins with the first bone

when he quit, they were angry. Why? He said he didn’t fit; that statement brought out the gang in them — Why become angry because someone chooses to leave you. Are you that lonely; fearful that you are losing air; power; influence?

10 years ago, when someone left, some of the group reached out. A decade later and the swap meet kicks over the sale sign and shouts at the poster. Then, they return to their congratulations about the exclusive knowledge, craft commitment and pride of honor for carrying the Great Analog Tradition. Art for the Weekend. Art on Vacation. Triumph in Retirement.

Dye Transfer – excuses

Posted on Posted in coursenotes, overnight notes, the fora, the Lab3 Comments

Learn by doing — but what if you’re too afraid, too uncertain, or now, just too late — all the stuff is gone. Everything is gone, except the high posters of the internet forums. They continue to chatter about a process that few of them engaged. It is used as a merit badge. Most of these posters are imposters; much like Post Exchange warriors — GIs who served by serving in the mess hall.

standardized: my dog ate it

I don’t mean to be unkind. I do mean to caution you about the internet guides who are lost, yet continue shouting follow me to paradise. The above quote is from a dye transfer group saved from the Yahoo/Egroup forum changes of the past winter. The quote (in blue) is a response from a poster found on Large Format & Photrio film-chemistry photography forums. He has more than 20,000 combined posts; using the forums as though a twitter+message system. [ his site is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20040603105530/http://drewwiley.com/contact.php ]

His response was to an established printer who is giving ‘Poser’ the benefit of the doubt, and has asked for details about Poser’s process specifics. The response is a standard: “my dog ate it.” My notes are in my other pocket.

The picture shows the car length distance to Poser’s ‘Lab.’ Although, by the miracle of no-one-cares he is never outed. Oddly, he is easy to locate — each of his postings has an eponymous website which is dutifully crawled by internet archive. Poser took his site offline a few weeks after making an appointment to show his work. Apparently he wanted to limit the prior knowledge of the person coming to see his work. [August 2020]

Two Places / Ways

Dye Transfer tried and died. Several times. It is not a viable commercial product. Nevertheless it continues to be held up as an elegant standard. A marker of qualitative superiority. As such, it is also said to be difficult to learn; so difficult that few have ever mastered it. Of course, that is uttered by those who stress a reprographic approach; those who made meager livings by selling tickets to a weekend workshop; most importantly, by those failures of courage.

The people who find reason after reason not to make a print; to just pick up a guide and follow it. These latter day delayers are the most common person on the forums, even the groups.io listserv. Poser will ask questions on a forum, repackage it for presentation on another, thereby, gaining ‘process’ credit. This alleviates, or it has for several years, his need to show. Poser prefers to tell, never show.

The danger to you is the same as getting a map from someone who has never travelled the area. Don’t expect that you will get further than they, before becoming lost like them.

Why hasn’t Poser learned dye transfer? For a decade he has bragged that he had. Over the past year, he has modified that stance. He was confronted, partially, on a forum, by someone who does make dyes. They didn’t call him out — she just asked him questions. Elementary ones. Ones like he can’t answer on the listserv…

He can’t learn because he is a show-off who has found it easier to splash around in the kiddie pools of the internet instead of learning to swim.

A sad thing: if this were 1980, in one week anyone who was going to learn dye transfer would have had the foundation down. Currently, the same immersive method is stretched into longer time.

First, find the guide. Don’t worry about the shoes; that comes later.

A year later [July 2021] — An update. We find the same Wiley poster using the same excuse. At least his has learned to spout the same acceptable coverup:

Ron, my notes are in the lab, but my hardening method for wash-off relief did involve ammonium dichromate.  I was trying to slow down the development step for sake of consistently developing large matrices in drums, trying to economize sink space.  And I got as far as concluding that wash-off relief is a realistic alternative to accomplish that. I still  haven’t found a big enough block of time to do serious image printing this manner.  I’m tied up with ongoing other kinds of intensive photographic projects.

Additional–