Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> in my browsings I've read of a photographer who was unwilling to plunge in to > the digital darkroom because the workflow was dependant on particular products > or technologies ... but isn't wet darkroom workflow similarly constrained? Doug, Oh, sure. Szarkowski even roughly organized his History around the premise that the modal functioning of photography has followed the course of technological advancement and change. There are many tales of photographers over the decades who were affected by the opportunity or loss. >There must be dozens of us who have lamented the loss of a favorite film, >developer, paper or process. Probably the most famous example of this was Frederick Evans, who quit photography after commercially-coated platinum paper was discontinued with the advent of WWI. My favorite tale of a photographer adversely affected by the loss of tools or materials was a NYC painter named Christopher Bailey, who used a broken Nikkormat to take haunting pictures late at night of the underside of the city. His camera had one lens--jammed on and couldn't be removed--and a crack in the lens, and the meter didn't work, and it was stuck on "B." And you know, he was a virtuoso of that thing--his work was very distinctive and technically perfectly appropriate for his subject matter. He drove an early SUV that was popular among drug dealers, and he kept getting it broken into by people looking for drugs. Finally he forgot and left the camera in the truck, and it was stolen. He got a new Nikon FM-2 but he could never recreate the "look" he got with that old, trashed Nikkormat. The irony is that the thief would have been lucky indeed to get $15 for that old beater of his, but for Chris it was a serious loss. - --Mike