Thoughts on Photography and Martyrdom

[paulr]

I am a better man than you because your last print took seventy-two hours to make, while mine took a hundred and ninety-six. The last time you attempted to lift your camera, you herniated two disks, but I herniated five. My hospital stay was seven weeks longer than yours. The doctors there discovered your liver has been damaged by pyro, but that my brain has been ravaged by mercury! My fingernails are two zones blacker than yours. Your breath smells like sulfur; mine like cyanide. Your prints are archival; mine are 73% immortal. Your vintage lenses are large and rare. Mine were unearthed by archaeologists from the tomb of an Egyptian Pharaoh. So precious was the find that I am forbidden by global treaty, and by an ancient curse inscribed in Cuneiform, from ever uttering the Pharaoh's name. The lenses are pulled by mule teams and have a maximum aperture so small, I have had clients expire from ennui while sitting for portraits. You sell your prints for impressive sums of money. Mine are so precious, I have yet to encounter a viewer worthy of their unveiling. Until such a man or woman is born, the prints will remain sealed in darkness, under veils of black velvet and lead, packed in a vacuum, locked in a vault, buried in primordial salt under a mountain whose location is unknown even to me.

AND: the computer on which I type this is 100% analog.

[reellis67]

I'm laughing so hard I can barely see my wooden keyboard!

- Randy

[Eric James]

Perhaps, but your for sale ads are for Arcas and Linhofs, and I'm trying to unload a Littman. Your apertures are so small that a single fungus spore provides creamy bokeh, yet my lenses are so horribly filled with fungus I have resorted to filling a Windex spray bottle with amphotericin B and squeegeeing before each exposure; and even then exposures are limited to 30 seconds lest horrible vignetting creeps in as the army reinvades. Your tripod may weigh 50 pounds but mine has but two fully extendable legs; thus my horizons are off kilter such that landscapes quake and waters runs from my prints.

[Mark Sampson]

And your real name must be F. Holland Day. At last I have deciphered the secret!

[Vaughn]

My prints taste better than yours...

[Pete Watkins]

Is the stuff that you've been on available in the U.K.? It could make my negs look better (to me at least).
Best wishes,
pete

[Don Boyd]

Having heard rumors of them for years, I went in search of the fabled prints of Paul Raphaelson. Eschewing family, friends, comfort and fourtune, seeking only this holy grail of print nirvana and desiring only to share them with the world, the only possible rightful heir; and after years of debilitating, seemingly impossible and dangerous beyond belief journies, I have discovered their lead and velvet lined resting place. Now, deep in the chamber where wi-fi barely reaches, and cautiously opening for the first time the lvault I see. . Oh my God! . . . m-y-y h-e-a-r-t . . . that they are . . . . u-g-g-h-h . . . must . . tell . . you . . .o-h-h-h-h . . .

[Bruce Watson]

All right. You win. Your Koolaid is better than mine :D

[Gordon Moat]

I'm sending you a clever response on cuniform. Be patient, the carrier pidgeon is having trouble lifting the clay tablet.
:D

[Michael Graves]

I'm laughing so hard I can barely see my wooden keyboard!

- Randy

Keyboard?

How quaint!

[Robert Hall]

The platinum used in my prints came from the Tunguska event. :)

[Wayne Crider]

Yes, yes. Of course your the better photographer. Now take this cup of pills and drink this juice; It's time for a nappy.

[Harold_4074]

Fascinating.

I would have commented sooner, but I had to go out and get another bucket of coal for the steam engine inside my computer.

You think you have it tough? Between pictures, I have to turn the lens back into sand for the cat...

[Robert Hughes]

And my developing trays double as cat boxes between darkroom sessions. Cat pee makes a great stop bath, but it's kinda smelly...

[adrian tyler]

is that a hasselblad?

[Brian C. Miller]

No, Adrian, its a Leica.

My camera was free and made out of an old school lunchbox tossed in the trash. I could have a lens, but the light leaking in at the corners makes for cool pictures. I'm such a good photographer that I get money for just sitting on the corner; I don't have to sell any prints. My prints are displayed at really major galleries, but gallery owners hate the glue that's left on the windows and doors when they peel the prints off. I get my chemicals from the hazmat recycling center after its closed.

My darkcloth is made out of a hair shirt.

[J Peterson]

LOL!

Well at least for you, you have the luxury of your own computer! I'm typing this from an internet cafe!

[scrichton]

My lens is made out of sand fom the beach I boiled by making a fire from driftwood then pushing the molten glass with my fingers I calculated the lens to my liking.

No-one knows though because I took the key runs out of a type-writer and pressed the words "snider kreutzneg" into it with my mouth.

However my cable release broke so I'm back to using my 35mm compact :(