Professional or Amateur Film

a designation which may seem offensive by those defensive users. Although not an absolute measurement, it was used by the main film makers for most of their film century.

The character of the professional user gave us the term. They used more film; stored it for shorter times; frequently altered the processing parameters. This market of film, frequently, included a tech-sheet with more technical information than the amateur ideograms, assuming that the professional would interpret them correctly for their need. The professional worked with controlled, or at least knowable light systems and situations.

The professional was expected to enlarge their film in different situations and to much greater degree than the amateur. Professional films were expected to be reprinted, or otherwise re-used more often than the amateur.

Amateurs frequently kept film in a camera over many months. At one mass-processor an informal contest ran: the winner would be the roll of film with the greatest number of year-over-year vacation snaps. More Thanksgivings, etc. The ultimate winner was a 12 exposure roll with a wedding, 8 Thanksgivings and a funeral. It was dropped off for processing at a One-Hour finisher. That is the amateur


making photographic emulsions

Labnotes–Feb 24

 two ways of minimizing dye bleeding. We always dried our 
prints on a drum dryer. The other was not to condition paper for more 
then thirty minutes. Any left over paper was used for test prints. — dye transfer

Other notions collected this week

Early reference made to Three-color methods and processes with special detail about Jos-Pe and Pinatype.

I’ve been going through notes on matrix making along with tanning methods: why developer replaced bleach.

finding the person behind the process leads to much more information about the process. These two people were the keys to Kodak’s emulsion coating discoveries. Nadeau and Starck are on many patents that would be key to making matrix film or Flexichrome emulsions.

While digging into the past there is the challenge of staying focused, limiting attention, and missing serendipitous materials such as: