Blogs Are Dead

Posted on Posted in overnight notes

yep. As a vehicle carrying you to fame; not dead for why they began. Awareness of your world. They started as a “log” — journal based commitment. First, a homepage before the net was “e” and “ramp” … WEBLOG, the word arose in 1997; prior to that written pages were widespread with links to other pages. Some people were gathering those links into categories.

We long to shorten words: chop off the WE becoming WEBLOG

Interactivity has changed. Exchange of ideas is once again metered. The best pay brings the “creators” to the packagers.

Small Screen Web. Narrow Gauge Reading.

The word count has a best-fit value; an optimum. TOP. crein. YC attempt to reach this value. Each of these appropriate different audiences. They fish the same stream using different size hooks.

// traffic. teriffics, but few ideas. A topic, influence, influencer influenza of words. Digression to the optimum medium

the net of the net — is it is an advertising agency 

advertising is the Internet .

no intent to inform but to opinionate you

there isn’t information there are opinions .

The more divided the market, the greater the range of products we can sell .

amateurs never have to be correct . Professionals, in the presence of other professionals, stake some of their future value on their offered opinion. Amateurs ask small questions as they make big conclusions. Professionals answer questions with examples, or links to manufacturers. They demonstrate; test their opinions… whereas amateurs talk about other, prior news items as yet unresolved… talk biz about a biz they don’t grok.

Ams talk, mostly fear. Professionals find opportunity.

ASIDE: big questions: how do you know when to stop using a developer– probably regarding exhaustion point of a developer. in other times, it was called the capacity, or durability.  chemicals have a storage life along with a use rate to reach exhaustion . large labs used replenishment systems to maintain chemical activity over thousands of rolls of film. ANSWER: look for the datasheet for your developer. PRACTICAL: I use one shot.

UPD : someone runs a site of https://www.are.na/lucy-pham/abandoned-blogs

See also

Index Prints

Posted on Posted in coursenotes, Getting Stuff, labnotes, visual mindTagged , , , , ,

The idea print. Collecting visuals. Stages of the darkroom process. Beyond the wild guess. Looking more than once, while looking at more than one. Building the comparative response.

This index is from the librarians, not the linguists. /’ that it contains so much contradictory information that a verbal message is needed to fix its meaning ‘/ 

WHY make contact sheets — to see the roll, thereby providing selection by comparison.. provides an editorial overview as it reveals your progression of action in the event-scene.

The key point of this post is using “jigs” as aid to determining exposure of a print. They provide an efficient way to make several attempts, or tests of settings in making darkroom prints. Typically, they are used to determine exposure setting, however, they could also be used to test changes in contrast filters, or color balance filtration, since while the “flaps” are closed, enlarger settings may be changed.

These devices are the commercial form of what was frequently a kludge made by the printer from cardboard, tape, or, perhaps, scavenged sheet film holders. My initial, 1960s version was made using scrapped film holders. These were sold by the cardboard box full at the surplus stores.

The start point. finding a way in the dark. What is the exposure setting for darkroom materials. Color or black-white paper exposure must be tested; determined by making trial exposures. These are called “test strips” — strips, small samples of the material you will use to make your print.

Durst Test Print Tool
Ways of making test strips.

Drawing patterns, making conclusions.
Index prints are also known as “contact sheets,” or “proof sheets.” Most uses of these are as first edit device for selecting among negatives/slides. The exposure, contrast and processing controls are sometimes lax. I try for a first best use setting for the most interesting of the negatives. This sheet serves as my point of search into my file of pictures. Rather than shuffling through the negatives, I shuffle through my index prints. These prints, in some cases, provide my an easy notepad of what was printed and when. The details of the printing will be in a print/darkroom notebook.


What is the start point of making a darkroom exposure

By using test jigs, I was able to characterize film for making separations for dye transfer in as few as 6 sheets of film. A morning’s work. It was sixty years later that a boastful amateur told a student of mine that wasn’t possible.

Good to know. #OIC

Sun Dye Service

Posted on Posted in overnight notesTagged , , ,

From my prior post: “CVI, Color Vision Imaging laboratory, Manhattan, 1981. Guy Stricherz (b. 1948) graduated from western Washington University in 1974. He went to New York city in 1977 to work for Frank Tartaro who was one of a dozen masterful printers. Even at that time the process was falling out of use. It had peaked by 1980. Irene Malli (b. 1964) graduated from Cooper Union; after graduation she worked as a printer before answering an ad for CVI in 1989. CVI was moved to Vashon Island from NYC in 2004. Some of their recent clients: Larry Burrows, Bruce Davidson, Thomas Demand, William Eggleston, Mitch Epstein, Ernst Haas, Hiro, Evelyn Hofer, Graziela Iturbide, Zoe Leonard, Arnold Newman, Irving Penn, Christopher Williams. Irene Malli born 1964, and Guy Stricherz (b. 1948 – d. March 29, 2025 ) . They used Kodak materials, their last for a final portfolio of William Eggleston. Much was made of this, including a widely distributed video. That video was, in a way, an introduction of the Irene to the world. Guy’s way of revealing the person in the shadows of CVI.

Knowing just those items would have paid credit to the grand pitch of Dye as Value. But TOP missed the century. kuhChing and kuhTOP are selling archaeology. crumbled bits, the remains of his past travel shots.

If you are going to pitch the past as value, get some of it correct, please.

saying it’s valuable because it’s a dye transfer diminishes its meaning .. as it means those folks who made dye transfers.

that you don’t know the history even though you’re selling some thing because it is historic that you don’t know the currency means not just that you’re a bad salesman, but that you’re a salesman that doesn’t even care 

is it valuable because of something in the bones, something intrinsic, or something in the brochure .

if it’s valuable because it’s a dye transfer, that’s a little bit like bragging about the framing, the matting; while charging for shipping and handling says discounts galore. A by the bucket sale.

S&H is the poor man’s coupon . like S&M… A diversion perversion

What is it worth? What will you get upon resale?

Factoid from the past: Eliot Porter portfolios sold for $900 with 10 prints. They even had a box, just no shipping and handling. When EPs were sold by Berkey Gallery, Porter got $300 for each print sold.

We have been here before. Going out of business that never ends.