[Leica] dis-intermediation Comparative shredders!

[Mark Rabiner <mark@rabiner.cncoffice.com>]

Austin Franklin wrote:
> 
> > Like most other
> > discussion lists tempers tend to flare easily. I believe that this can
> > be attributed to the dis-intermediation (I've always wanted to use that
> > word...) provided by email. To wit - it is not a face to face
> > conversation. As a result we don't get the clues when our statements
> > start to get out of control, and the statements just keep on going
> > further and further.
> 
> [Austin] I completely disagree.  We NEVER have anything like this happen on the Hasselblad list.
> 
> -----------------

Well Austin!! I do recall a few months back a bunch of photographers of the
wedding ilk metaphorically sitting around talking about how many weeks to months
after a wedding they hold on to their negatives before they dispose of them and
how they most efficiently go about doing that. 
Comparative shredders!

I found the topic distatefull to put it mildly and brought up issues of "your
body of work" and did Victor design this exquisite camera system so a bunch of
shlock artists can shoot pictures with it and then complain about the space the
negatives were taking up in their studio. I believe I might have expressed it
with a degree of subtlety though.

ANYWAY for a while there I did not appear to me the most popular guy on the HUG
which is putting it mildly.
But then a few people agreed with me and the whole thing eventually blew over.
A little EXCITEMENT there on a VERY calm list!
I've got pretty much every negative I've ever shot in 33.3 years, it's my
copyright and my body of work.
Holding on to and archiving ones negatives is the most basic precept in my training.
I do not find it an inconvenience. I find it a basic part of doing business. I
often get calls from long lost clients who want a print from a very old shoot. I
consider it a basic cost of doing business and nothing less. BOY are they happy
when they see THOSE images!
And shots from weddings I shot decades ago I'll eventually print (in black and
white perhaps and inkjet perhaps) and THAT may be my best shot at an Aperture
monograph or being discovered by the current Museum of Modern Art Czar.
So there are always going to be issues which are going to get people
going...perhaps dealing with identity.
Mark (flying frosting) Rabiner