> Seems to me we're just hardwired differently. I'm not trying to fake
anyone out. I don't care if my B&W doesn't look like a particular film or a
particular paper. I care about how I think it looks in the sense of what I'm
trying to express. Well, maybe that's too artsy-fartsy . . . in the sense of
what I'm trying to portray. The individual who comes in and proceeds to
inform me how I failed to achieve the look of the wet darkroom will be
treated politely, but shown the door as quickly as possible--unless, of
course, he just has to blow off some steam before he actually buys
something. <g>
This reminds me of something that Saint Adams (AA) wrote. He put together a
series of prints for some shows which were, uh, rather dark and gloomy. At
the time it reflected his current mentality of expression, but others
commented on the overall darkness of the pictures and tried telling him, but
he wouldn't listen. A year or so later his eyes were opened and he realized
that they really were off. Meanwhile, during that time, the sales went way
down. During the gloomy period he made the excuse that it was his artistic
intent.
So, what I'm saying is that getting off the beaten track with our own
artsy-fartsy interpretation of a scene may fulfill some internal need, but
it may not necessarily be what others are going to want hanging on their
walls. This is especially true with B&W which has a couple distinct "rules"
which need to be followed, but otherwise are pretty freeform. The
characteristics of, say, Tri-X printed on a nice fiber-glossy paper may seem
"old school", but generally speaking, it's a formula that works and works
very well. I know that I can do a whole lot worse than going for that "basic
look".
I have a print (waiting for NSURIT's signature) of a bathroom in an
abandoned building. It's one very very cool picture and I believe that it
exists in its form because of the chosen technology. To get the print
looking the way it is required about every darkroom trick in the book, but
had this been a digital-conversion image, I can pretty much guarantee that
it would have gone an entirely different direction. Without seeing something
emerge in a work-print, there is no way I would have seen what I saw and
printed it in the manner it was. I don't know how Bill visualized the print
when he shot the image, but I'd think that he wouldn't have expected it to
end the way it did. So, what happened is the "flawed technology" presented
an opportunity for interpretation which wouldn't not have existed in purely
digital workflow. Sure, you can experiment and try out different SfX
settings, but aren't those flaws too?
I've got a number of pictures wating for processing because I don't have a
clue how to interpret them or print them yet. This is true for both digital
and film images. More often than not, though, I know what I want with the
film images, but just don't have the ability yet, whereas with the digital
images, I'm just not sure where they want to go. The compositions and
subjects are great, but the overall image is just lacking the right visual
presentation.
Some of you may recall my picture "Wet Leaves"
www.image66media.com/printsales.html which was shot on Ilford Delta 100. I
also took that picture with Provia. On numerous occasions I've attempted to
duplicate the picture from a scan of the slide. I've also attempted to
duplicate the picture from the negative itself. Neither work at all. To say
it is impossible to duplicate is obviously not true since ANYTHING is
possible, but extremely unlikely. So, why does it matter? Why be locked to
this one interpretation as presented by the technology? Because nothing else
worked. Other interpretations pretty well stink. BTW, that picture on the
webpage is a digital photograph of a print. Of course, the final print
version didn't just "happen", it required extensive work and numerous
variations over many weeks and months.
On the complete flip side of this coin: The digital workflow has presented
me with many more photographic interpretations that DO work than the
all-analog workflow has done, so all is good.
:)
AG
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