[Leica] T#ch P@n

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

Friends,
Anyone who wants to shoot Tech Pan doesn't need my permission. Please, go
ahead, and if it works for you, fine, and I'm sure I would like your
pictures.

However, I EARNED the right to think it sucks...

I've paid my dues.

For six long years putting out photo magazines one after the other, I had to
put up with getting pelted with an endless stream of CRAPPY portfolios from
people who were under the highly mistaken impression that using Tech Pan
made their work s-p-e-c-i-a-l....oh so special...it was on TECH PAN...the
BEST film...it had to be good....

Man, did that stuff reek. The work, I mean. I mean, I never saw ONE good
portfolio come in on TP. Never one damn lousy portfolio in the neighborhood
of Halfway Decent. The stuff just plain and simple appeals to hopeless
dweebs searching for some crutch to make up for the fact that they wouldn't
know a halfway decent picture if it was a snake and bit them on the ass and
HUNG THERE.


JMB>>>TP is THE film. I use it for many purposes, astronomy, portraits,
landscapes, document reproduction, photomicrography. <<<

Okay, there's an exception to every rule. I already mentioned that Bob
Clemens actually managed to produce some good prints with Tech Pan because
he had to for the Kodak books, and he defends the stuff (although he doesn't
use it now that he's retired!). Maybe only 97% of TP portfolios suck
polluted swamp muck and the other 3% are dazzling. I'm willing to believe
that. So PRESENT COMPANY EXCEPTED, please. Okay? I'm not insulting anybody
specific here, JMB or anybody else. Please, use Tech Pan if you like it, if
it works for you, and ignore me. Put a non-perfectly-planar filter on me. I
don't tell you what to do. I'm sure you are confident enough to ignore my
opinions. I'm sorry.

But I haaa-a-a-a-a-aaaate that crap, and I'll never shoot a picture on TP
again if I live to be a hundred. That's just what having to look at all
those endless god-forsook, piss-poor, weak-ass alleged photographs has done
to me; made me all cringy, like a whupped dawg.

There it is. Now don't get me started on...no, I'm not even going to mention
my other _betes noir_; no use tempting fate (like that stops me).

- --Mike