[Leica] high price of progress - now weekend warriors

[rdcb37 at dodo.com.au (Rick Dykstra)]

I like that Mark - a printer means accountability.

I guess I'm a weekend warrior.  Always have been.  Even as a kid I was 
always scheming on how to make some pocket money from doing what I 
enjoy.  Like collecting and selling pine-cones for fire-wood at a 
little stall out the front of the house.  hehe.  1 bucket full for 20 
cents.  Eventually my mum bought them all.  :-)

So this progressed into photography.  The same motive has seen me sell 
thousands of soccer photos to the other kids' mums.  My commitment for 
today is to put up for sale the first of my nature photos at the 
National Park visitors centre, where hopefully more mums will pull out 
their purses.  And then go shoot some more little birds before my fast 
dwindling weekend ends.

More power to the weekend warriors!

Who else?

Rick.


On 05/03/2005, at 1:45 PM, Mark Rabiner wrote:
>>
> The other problem for the "weekend photo warrior" what I've figured 
> out in
> the past few days are the demands digital makes on the user.
> Its not just bring the film into the drugstore, pick up the prints, 
> put them
> in the photo album like it used to be.
> Although they may have almost re created that in effect digitally.
>
> Getting into digital for a lot of people means getting a printer. "you 
> need
> a printer don't you?"
> And make it also more likely the person will have things uploaded to 
> their
> website or some kind of gallery.
>
> So they are either (what I call) printing to monitor for their website 
> and
> emails. Just tweaking density and contrast for the most part.
> Or they are printing to inkjet. And a lot of people don't care for 
> that.
> I know at least one local guy who I've known for 25 years who has had 
> a 2200
> for well over a year and not one print to show for it. From it. Not 
> one. His
> one inkjet he's got in his stack of prints he had done custom at a pro 
> lab.
> Although he does have that STACK OF PRINTS.
> As in big prints. A portfolio even.
>
> Another local guy I've only known for 10 years and never seen much of
> anything from but has had for a brief moment at one time every choice 
> mouth
> watering piece of equipment anyone has ever dreamed for using.
> "Oh I had a 3.4 Super Angulon a few years ago. Sold it"
> "Oh I had a Linhof Master Technika a few years ago. Sold it"
> "Oh I had a Thumbar a few years ago. Sold it"
> "Oh I had a Alpa when I first got married. Sold it"
> "Been there. Done that".
> And you'll never see a print. Nor slide.
>
> He's had an Epson 4000 for perhaps half a year.
> After all it IS THE piece of modern equipment TO HAVE.
> Problem is with a printer its more results orientated than with a 
> camera
> even.
> With a printer people have the tendency to say "ok so where's the 
> prints?".
> Less then with a camera even.
> With a camera you could have boxes of Kodachrome somewhere in your 
> basement
> you can't quite find and have to organize.
> So you just show them your gear.
> But a printer. You expect a stack of prints. Maybe something hanging 
> on the
> wall. Other than the baby sitter.
>
> You probably think I am making this up or exaggerating beyond all
> recognition. Email me off list and I'll name names and places of work. 
> Where
> they take their lunch breaks. Where they work out.
>
> Lots of "weekend photo warriors" are not into it for the follow 
> through. The
> accountability. The want to make it go "click" and have "Kodak to the 
> rest".
>
> The very same people are also too chinsey to shell out for a stack of 
> custom
> 8x10's to show people it goes without saying. Except for that first
> acquaintance I just mentioned with the 2200.
>
> It's snapshot-city machine-prints from the get-go with most people even
> those you meet on most fairly advanced sounding photo lists.
> But I guess they're making it so picking your 4x6's from the drugstore 
> or
> wherever has gotten digital as well. They say "Kodak" on the back and
> everything and are semigloss borderless.
>
> Except yesterday at the local "Shutterbug" where I was looking for 
> camera
> bags as usual there was a lady who was standing there watching a 
> machine
> crunch out her snapshots. It was loud! I think she was the one who 
> made it
> happen. Put her CompactFlash card in or something. Set up a few 
> parameters
> and perambulators.
> I guess there's a new art form - work around - printing process...
>
> WALGREEN'S PRINTING
>
> Mark Rabiner
> Photography
> Portland Oregon
> http://rabinergroup.com/
>
>
>
>
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