The outpost of the bachelor herd. Those old timers who didn’t do the stuff they will be asked about; they’ve become the experts.
- they ask shopping questions. They use the forum as if it were a sales counter on Saturday, the day the weekend warriors get to pretend they do THIS for real.
- the same group rejects, out of ignorance and arrogance, the question of a newcomer. New in the process, not in imagination– at least imagination prompted by broader reference imagery than the Snobby Hobby.
Stages of the meaning of amateur: what do they provide us? How can the task of understanding be accelerated? Follow a thread, re-constructed for revelation of the question-response cycle of early participants in an online community of practice.
One person. the OP, is a professional lab printer with many years of experience. As he ventures further away from the longtime standard darkroom print, he seeks out answers from the unknown members of a forum. [this took place in 2016 (over 2 days) ] The general topic filters doesn’t seem to be retained; it becomes a topic in which expertise dissolves — it doesn’t stay with the group, no matter how many times it is repeated — the group mind has no memory. They don’t learn.
Oddly, the professional lacks the knowledge, therefore, must ask a group of unknowns. He, likely, assumes they have more experience than they do– he is, even more likely, hoping they have more experience than he does.
Why would he assume that they know how to make studio photographs with filters that will be solarized? None of them exhibits solarized work. Few of them show anything other than landscapes; typical outdoor scenics of the great west.
Effect of filter. Effect of solarization.
Effect of lacking foundation skills to be a professional: will rely upon those of lesser skills. Probably meaning you haven’t become an independent, valuable provider to those with ability to pay well. Your chances of survival go down if the skill in your market rises. As widespread darkroom skill declines, you get to survive. Luckily, that is the course of the century. The lights are being turned off.
// success is timed. Multiply your costs factor. A well defined question provides pathway to correct, useable answer. They are right about one thing: a book is better than them.
| Wratten 12 (Y) | |
| Wratten 11 | |
| Wratten 44 (cyan) | |
| Wratten 25 (red) | |
Light source matters, as does color sensitivity of the BW film.
along similar lines, at least in the same quadrant of that (above) 2 year old note: we get another request for information from the same professional.
an adage pops up: you can lead a horse to water…
The person who can’t find information on their own, isn’t the person who will use the information well. Locating a vendor is an elementary part of running a business. Asking the hobby world makes you a hobbyist — and a foolish one, in this case.
Reliance upon a small group makes you either on the advance or the decline. The hobby forums are not the leading edge of chemical photography.
Advise, constant, recurring: don’t ask the forums. In old ‘cology it was said: “don’t give away your eyes.”
You will learn more about your work by doing it. Don’t ask them, they really never did succeed. The Fromm’s and Friends are only noticed because they hang out in a space someone else provided. The tour bus drops you off where they can park, not where you need be.
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