[Leica] I have given up

[puff11 at comcast.net (Norm Aubin)]

 Marc,

Please don't despair - in spite of the gloom and doom comments about film
disappearing, I seriously doubt that it is likely to go away anytime in the
next few decades.  If I can ever get the space put aside and the where with
all to do so again, I too will reconstitute my wet darkroom.  Since I don't
have to make money with my photography, I can do it as a true amateur.
After 25 years mastering black and white printing, I think I can re-learn
enough to make myself happy at that time too!  If you don't have access to a
darkroom right now, make pictures anyway.  Take the films to a local pro-lab
- or seek out a college and see if you can hire a photography student to
work to your orders concerning film processing and contact sheet making.
Hell - even Costco 4x6's are good proof sheets for now.

For now I am using a digital darkroom, and it's fine.  One of our local
schools has classes for digital beginners, starting with how to scan, how to
do basic editing of a scanned image, and how to do prints.  They delve a
little into the more interesting topics, like using a RIP, and printing with
Quadtone inks and even Peizography (carbon based inks on archival papers)
printing.  In some ways it's every bit a daunting as learning everything you
know about wet work, all over again.  In other ways it's easier, because you
know what a good image can look like - you know where you want to end up.
Half the time my wet work was hampered by not knowing what a good print
could look like.

I self-taught the basics of black and white film processing and printing,
and got by for years that way.  The I took courses in Zone System film
processing, and fine art black and white printing; many, many courses, over
several years.  What I learned there was worth the time and effort, I look
back at what I did 20 years earlier and shudder.  Digital is the same - in
spite of what so many think.  

I still capture my images on a Leica, using slides or color neg, and
sometime B&W films,  as the subject dictates, but I scan them and print them
using an Epson printer.  I fell in love with the Legion Sommerset papers,
and they provide you a file you can copy for free that tells the printer how
the paper reacts to the inks, so that it can bias the colors a little to
accommodate.  This is no different than the color filter pack changes you
make when you switch from Kodak to Fuji papers, and far less than the change
even going from batch to batch.  It's also analogous to the split filtration
techniques that the VC papers allow.

That's all a RIP is, by the way.  It's a filter pack for that paper and ink
set.  Ink does not cover the full color spectrum.  Nor does your monitor
screen.  Nor do papers respond to inks the same way.  In color printing we
use filter packs and experimentation to dial in the filtration to get to
that correct representation, and we accept the fact that papers do not get
all the colors correct at once.  There is no slide film that gets all colors
correct and even, nor is there a paper.  They all have a color fingerprint.
That's why we have Astia and Velvia and all those Kodak variations.  Like
wise B&W films have signatures.  Tastes and intents vary - the films and
papers accommodate.

If you want to delve into digital at some point, then take some community
college introduction classes.  They are worth the few hundred they cost,
they will let you see what can be done, and they will put you in touch with
people who can even come over to your house and help you set up your
hardware and software to do what you want it to do, or at least give you
written notes to try yourself.  They may charge a small fee, or they may do
it as an act of kindness, but you can at least then make an informed
decision as to whether this is a venue you want to explore.

For what it's worth, my degree is in numerical analysis, I've been
programming in various languages since the early days of FORTRAN in the late
sixties, and professionally designing embedded software applications for
neigh onto 25+ years now, and the thought of going home to a computer to do
photography was anathema for a long time!  It's not about being computer
literate, it's about desire to learn a whole new way to do the same thing.
Needs must as the devil drives, it's digital or nothing for the time being,
and that's what got me here.  Someday I may have the luxury of a wet
darkroom again, I hope so, but one can do good work with this stuff, if you
just get a little training.  There are a lot of folks who can learn it by
just picking up a book on how to do this, there are others (like myself) who
do better by seeing it done and learning by doing.  

Or you can choose not to, and that's a good choice too.  I love the look of
a fiber based print, it's what defines fine art photography to me.  I
couldn't bear the thought of not making them again someday in the future,
and platinum prints too!

Best of light,
Norm


> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 20:16:17 -0500
> From: Marc James Small <msmall@infionline.net>
> Subject: [Leica] I have given up
> To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
> Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.20060206201617.0268f80c@pop.infionline.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> I no longer take pictures.  I am not at present equipped with 
> a darkroom though I suspect that I shall be again within a 
> six-month or so.  I have no ability with digital and my 
> efforts to learn from this group about digital have simply 
> convinced me that I have no idea whjat anyone is talking about.
>  I have a VERY basic digital P&S and I cannot make it work.  
> My wife has a very basic digital P&S and can on rare occasion 
> make it work.  But neither of us can obtain any sort of 
> regular success from digital, nor can either of us comprehend 
> such software as Photoshop.  (And, no, we are not computer
> jerks:  my wife is a director of quality control for a major 
> HMO and I have been dicking about with computers for twenty 
> years and more.)
> 
> What I am saying is that digital has juist absolutely sucked 
> out of me any interest in photography.  I would like to find 
> a list where we could get back to figuring out the Leitz 
> dingus which allowed a PLOOT to be fitted to a QUANGO.  
> That's my place.  I really do not belong on a Leica Users' 
> Group and will probably soon retire from this province as I 
> simply no longer wish to take pictures.
> 
> Digital wins.  I lose.
> 
> Marc
> 
> msmall@aya.yale.edu
> Cha robh b`s fir gun ghr`s fir!
> 
> NEW FAX NUMBER:  +540-343-8505

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