Where will B&W be in 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 .... years

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 14:38:18 -0500, bob wrote:

Gregory Blank wrote:

Uh this is rec. photo.darkroom or did you forget
when has the population at large really understood
much of any one given specialized process....you only
ever have a small group that formally understands a
relative issue,.. not the population at large.

Well, OK, but the population at large uses things they call cameras to
make what they call photographs. "They" don't seem to distinguish
between digital based and film based images. If you wasnt to argue that
a small subset of the population use the word photograph more
restrictively I would not argue against that, but to claim that all
those other people aren't allowed their usage of the word seems rather
pompous.


Just because ignorance is rampant, don't condemn the educated.

"Photography is a method for producing lasting images by means of a
chemical reaction that occurs when light hits a specially prepared
surface. It was invented during the first three decades of the 19th
century as a direct consequence of advances in chemistry and optics
(the science of the behavior of light). The word photography comes
from two Greek words that mean “writing with light.”

Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference Library 2005. © 1993-2004 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
==
Main Entry: pho·tog·ra·phy
Pronunciation: f&-'tä-gr&-fE
Function: noun
the art or process of producing images on a sensitized surface (as a
film) by the action of radiant energy and especially light

Webster.com
==
Photography

A process by which chemically sensitized surfaces are exposed to light
(photo) and retain an image (graph) of what is exposed. Methods may be
very simple to highly complex. Camera are usually used with adjustable
lenses (apertures) and controlled light levels on light sensitive
film. The film is then processed (developed) and the image is "fixed"
(made permanent). The image (a negative) is transferred onto treated
papers, enlarged and processed with chemicals in a "dark room" to make
the photographs (also called prints).

http://www.80four.co.uk/articles/photographyterms.html

You must be confused about what I'm talking about. Wal-Mart will print a
digital file on an 8x10 piece of silver halide paper for under $3.
Ilford MG IV runs $41/100. To my way of thinking there's not that much
difference in cost, at least not in the quantities I'm involved in.

Wal-Mart ? Yes, I buy my childreens diapers there. I'm sure
the clerk can also operate a digital printer with equal skill.

Wal-Mart - #1 exporter of jobs and money in the US today.

Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 14:25:34 -0500, Rafe Bustin
wrote:


But hey, if you'd like to volunteer as
Luddite-in-residence, welcome.

Can we start a club ? If understanding and using the
legitimate definition of a word properly makes me a Luddite then I'm
all for it !

"You've got to stand for something Or you're gonna fall for anything"

John Mellencamp

Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:17:05 GMT, Gregory Blank
wrote:

There's a huge vast quality issue between Walmart prints and
handmade prints I do,...vastly mine are better.

I wonder if of the billions of prints made at *,-Mart's, if a
one of them has ever had a good black other than when someone opened
the processor with the paper shutter open ?

Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

bob wrote:
Gregory Blank wrote:

Uh this is rec. photo.darkroom or did you forget
when has the population at large really understood
much of any one given specialized process....you only
ever have a small group that formally understands a
relative issue,.. not the population at large.

Well, OK, but the population at large uses things they call cameras
to
make what they call photographs. "They" don't seem to distinguish
between digital based and film based images. If you wasnt to argue
that
a small subset of the population use the word photograph more
restrictively I would not argue against that, but to claim that all
those other people aren't allowed their usage of the word seems
rather
pompous.

If asked, 95 % of the general public couldnt tell you what species they
belong to either. They have been sold on DI as photography, and they
have been dumbed down in the process. The salemen dont give a crap,
and its not the publics fault. They just buy what they are fed, they
dont care about specifics. Its up to people who know better,
photographers, to take the term photography back before its meaning is
diluted beyond repair. And the general public wont care about that
either. Only salesmen and a few serious DI'ers who will resist it.

John wrote:
Wal-Mart ? Yes, I buy my childreens diapers there. I'm sure
the clerk can also operate a digital printer with equal skill.

LOL )

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:56:19 GMT, Gregory Blank
wrote:


Me thinks you have stayed very far from the topic listed above.

BTW-"Yeah who cares about quality" as long we get them super cheap and
as long as the general populous recognizes it as a photo,...lets just
call it that and leave the "graph" out of it. We can also make BLOW UP's
from them when ever we wants.

Most people just call them "pitchas" or "pitchers" depending
on whether you're from north or south of the Mason-Dixon line ;)


Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:53:29 GMT, "Nicholas O. Lindan"
wrote:

year 2525


mar1605 from Lloyd Erlick,

The only problem I have with those predictions is that
they seem to give us way more time than it looks like
we have.

I thought it was Barry McGuire who sang it? (No doubt
I've got the spelling wrong). Wasn't one of the lines
"ain't gonna be no one left alive" ??

regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
voice: 416-686-0326
email:
net: www.heylloyd.com
________________________________
--

In article , jjs wrote:
"Chris Brown" wrote"

And I have my email archives from 1992.

I have mine from 1977, and until just recently could read the tapes. I
decided to let the whole lot go to the ether and erased 'em.

Impressive. Earliest stuff I have kicking around is probably from the mid
80s on floppies, but I have no idea if they're still readable - everything I
really wanted from them has long since been transfered to more modern media.

In article ,
David J. Littleboy wrote:

Heck, even I agreeg. Except that it should be _some of the photographic
artists working in B&W_. Hey, it's true now: the bimonthly B&W art rag here
(Natural Glow) has lots of digital shot B&W and even B&W originally shot on
color slide film.

I have a Velvia 6*6 from last year which got some really nice sunset colours
on an old-style phone box. Thing is, I've been playing around with the scan,
and it actually looks really good as B&W, probably better than the colour
version, which is actually let down slightly by a distracting bright sky
patch.

Thing is, making a B&W print from Velvia, being known for its outrageous
saturation, just seems so *wrong* somehow...

In article , Peter Irwin wrote:
The word "photograph" has long had a technical meaning
within the field of photography. In R. Child Bailey's
The Complete Photographer (10th ed. 1932) he writes:
"In the strictly literal sense of the word 'photograph'
a carbro print is not a photograph at all, since light
plays no part in its production" (p.212).

I think that the motivation for this insistence on
the strict meaning of the term may not be purely
based on a desire for accuracy in communication,
but that doesn't change the fact that communication
can be improved by insisting on technical meanings
of terms within the field even though those terms
have acquired looser meanings in popular use.

In my mind it is strange to have different names for otherwise identical
objects depending on the process used to produce them.

With a little bit of effort it is possible to produce three prints that look
more or less identical but are produced in different ways: one using a
film negative and traditional (color) enlargement, one by scanning the
negative and printing it digitally, and one by taking a digital picture
and printing that.

I don't know what people in 1932 called images that were the result of
some physical process that involves light (instead of a chemical process)
but my guess is that they didn't have a word for it, because it didn't
exist (except for television).

In the future, when 99% of picture is digital, you may have to use something
like 'all chemical photograph' to get the point across that you are talking
about traditional photography.


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency