Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/01/27

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Split printing
From: Mark Rabiner <mrabiner@concentric.net>
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 15:05:22 -0800

George Huczek wrote:
> 
> Mark,
> I would be interested to hear your objections to the posting you were
> replying to.  Please be as specific as possible in describing what you
> found to be inaccurate and objectionable to KT's post.  I'm also interested
> in why you were insulted by the information provided.  I hope you will take
> the opportunity to explain.
> George
> 
snip
 
George:
I realized this next day that I reacted emotionally with no factual
specifics on Kt's slight of spit printing. In the red dots I was seeing
I was thinking I was reading that he was saying the curves available
with split printing were inferior. He was merely stating that they were
no better. However his overall snide assessment was based it was obvious
to me not on direct experience with the process itself other than an
article read from a magazine four years ago.
He is saying in effect: "What you are spending your life doing in the
darkroom is only advantageous in your own imagination, I know, I read an
article in a magazine about it four years ago."
What is now required from a split printing affectionare is a description
of some of the less obvious advantages of the technique that comes from
a work through. If I have been reluctant it is because it is a challenge
to make a thing like this concise in the form of two or three short
paragraphs. I always skip over long posts unless its Erwin and it is a
struggle for me to be clear...and this not being a darkroom group.
But I'm going to work up a concise work through which could reveal how
the whole new approach to printing breaks down with the hopes that a few
might read enough of it to try it. Some of this I didn't get from any
book and worked up myself and it will be interesting to me if others
have come around to a similar technique.
The think about this whole printing thing is we are not talking about
feel. We are talking about results I.E. the prints. The prints would
speak for themselves. If I started turning out prints for myself, my
clients and my shows that were a drop off from my previous existing body
of work, (thirty years) people would notice. And I would notice. To
infer that this is a gimmick pretty much in my or the printers
imagination is a rude insult coming from someone with no contrary
experience to speak from.
If someone said: "I tried this split printing stuff for a whole
afternoon and I can't figure how out anyone would waist there time", I
would have no have red dots flashing in front of my eyes, that would be
an expression of personal preference.
Actually I tried it for an afternoon and came back to it a month later
and it gradually kicked it to win me over. Within a year I was not even
using the variable dial to make contact sheets. Your results may differ.
Mark Rabiner