I thought this was an interesting item on the BBC website today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4130620.stm
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I thought this was an interesting item on the BBC website today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4130620.stm
As a child, the wool mittens my Grandmother knit for me were infinitely better than anything store-bought the other kids had. Even expensive fur-lined leather.
My Mother’s warm-from-the-oven homemade bread was far more tasty than machine-made stuff from the grocer. Even when it didn’t turn out exactly according to the recipe.
A sweater knit with an abundance of love by my wife is highly treasured over fancy ones from fancy stores, priced at several hundred dollars a copy. Even when her sweater’s arms don’t quite match in length.
My home-grown tomatoes are much more yummy than those at the local farmers’ market. Even when theirs are bigger and juicier.
Making photographs yourself every evening in your own basement (humble as they may be) is a magnificent pastime which the younger generation will sadly not enjoy. What is even sadder is that they won’t even know what they have missed.
What in the world do people do after supper these days, anyway?
They watch TV while wearing their walkman and have a conversation about nothing on their cellphone while complaining about being bored. We do an injustice to the potato, they are couch amoebas...EC
"What in the world do people do after supper these days, anyway?"
Evidently they sit at their computers, get online, and complain about how the world's gone straight to hell (back in the good old days people made the same compaints after supper, only they did it face to face at the pub).
As per the article mentioned in this post, the only productive conclusion that should be drawn from this information is that it would very likely be a great time to get a screaming deal on a 35mm camera. Take advantage of the unique opportunity.
Beyond that all one can say that the industry is being re-calibrated to a new set of demand variables for film. New management and/or players and realistic revenue projections that paint a reasonable target for film going forward. As long as there is money to be made, there will be film. Get over it.
Cheers!
I'm actually glad to see the consumer photo market switching to digital. the amount of chemistry used (and silver-laden effluent produced) from all those millions of rolls of snapshots always seemed like an incredible waste.
As far as large format and 120 and even pro 35mm films, i think they'll be around for a while. Even when the day comes that you can't buy them at the camera superstore, someone's going to be making them and selling them. It's not always a bad thing when something you like leaves the mainstream and gets picked up by a cottage industry.
No one's taking anyone's darkroom away. And no one's taking yarn away from anyone's grandma, flour and yeast from anyone's kitchen, or tomatoes from anyone's garden (I have some plump ones outside right now, almost ready to be slathered with olive oil and basil).
Cottage industries can be a good thing. I still can find plenty of vinyl to feed my 1 year old Sota turntable....and this is more than 15 years after the supposed death of the analog LP.
After supper, those youth of today who are the equivalent of the camera nerd of yesterday, go into their rooms to work with digital imaging on Photoshop. They might do flash animation. They immerse themselves in the new technology in order to answer their creative urge. I am not interested in digital, but it's just a new medium folks, not the end of the world.
"and this is more than 15 years after the supposed death of the analog LP."
The death of vinyl is an interesting example. On the downside, hardly any new music gets released on LP. On the upside, used LPs are plentiful and cheap. And in a stroke of cottage industry fortune that no one predicted, there are now more high end turntables being made than ever in the past.
Everything in your pocket at this minute is one of a million (nearly) mass-produced products. The cheap handkerchief from JCPenney, the plastic pocket comb, the metal coins, the wallet, the plastic credit card, the Zippo lighter, the Pilot ballpen, the car keys, the pack of chewing gum and on and on and on.
You cannot afford to purchase one-off custom-made products. As expensive as an automobile is, try making one yourself. Here is a shovel - go dig some iron ore to start. How about a crystal mouth-blown catsup bottle?
Like everything else, the great unwashed masses of people out there drive the marketplace. (60% of all Hasselblads are bought by amateurs) When they stop buying anything by the millions, it quickly disappears from the mass marketplace. Like Kodak paper.
When the vacation happy-snappers stop buying 35mm cameras they will begin to disappear from the mass marketplace. Or the price will be forced into Leica-Land because of the low volume.
As for the point of my earlier reply (which often gets lost), making something tangible at home with your hands is extremely rewarding. As anyone can attest who, like me, received for his 12th birthday a genuine Kodak print-making kit with plastic acorn safelight and contact printing lightbox.
Having “images” automatically appear on a cathode ray tube does not qualify as making something tangible with your hands.
By Saturday evening, I have created a stack of fiber prints in my lab, or perhaps a chair or bench in my wood shop. The neighbor’s kid has only a “score” which he racked up on his computer game to show for the entire day’s efforts.
I feel sorry for that kid and what he is missing. I also feel sorry for anyone who thinks I’m just a silly old man living in the past.
John, one thing you said has always been true for the majority of people:
"You cannot afford to purchase one-off custom-made products. As expensive as an automobile is, try making one yourself. Here is a shovel - go dig some iron ore to start. How about a crystal mouth-blown catsup bottle?"
It's a misconception to think that back in the days when all things were made by hand, most people could afford to have them. They couldn't. The standard of craftsmanship was high, but the standard of living was very low by some of the most basic measures. In the Seventeenth Century, long before disposable Ikea furniture, all furniture was made by hand from hand-prepared wood (there wasn't even lumber in today's sense, so do-it-yourself building was really limited to professionals). The furniture was all very nice. The flipside of this is that the typical middle class household would have one or two real pieces of furniture. Typically a rough hewn table with benches and an heirloom chest of drawers. These would be worth months and months of wages and would be passed on for generations. It was impossible for all but the very rich to have things like chairs, sofas, beds. Is this a better situation than ours today? In some ways, and from some perspectives, yes. But in many ways no. I don'k know too many people who would prefer it.
Photography is a more recent example, For its first several decades it was a pursuit limited to the elite. Only very wealthy members of the leisure class could afford the time, equipment, and materials to practice it. Gradually, technological innovations like the dry plate, film, silver paper, the brownie, the 35mm camera, and now the digital camera, have democratized the medium. Is this a good thing? Not in the eyes of the very rich who'd rather keep it to themselves. But I think it's been good for the world that more people have had a chance. How much great talent would never have been known if photography remained limited to the elite few?
Does this progression have its downsides? Of course--everything does. Are they insurmountable? Get real. It's been a hundred years since platinum printing died (with the discontinuation of commercial platinum papers). Yet somehow, there were more people making platinum prints in 1999 than ever before in history.
... And others making silver prints, and others making digital prints. In the big picture, choices are expanding, not contracting. Of coure this leaves room for people to make unfortunate choices--if your neighbor's kid truly does nothing but play video games, then that is indeed sad. But there are other kids doing amazing things--mixing music and making videos in home studios, inventing new sports, silkscreening original designs on shirts, and in some cases doing photography. If it's digital photography, then great. It means that kids who ten years ago couldn't have afforded to explore that side of their creativity can do so today. Would you take that away from them?
John,
I also feel you are doing a great diservice to today's kids when you say "I feel sorry for that kid and what he is missing." He (or she) may be starting with a digital image and manipulating it in Photoshop but he is still using his creative abilities, exercising his talent, still taking an image in his minds eye and translating it into an image for the world to enjoy. Can you honestly say that the final print that he may produce is any worse than that you produced when you were a kid? Maybe he got there walking a different street but he still got there.
True Ted,
And that kid probably feels sorry for the poor soul working in the dark handling a variety of environmentally questionable chemicals, to in the end have less control of the final product than he can with a mouse.
environmentally questionable chemicals
Do you have any idea of the damage chip manufacturing causes the environment? Stay away from things you know nothing about.
As to the control, you are right. Learning how to control real photographic materials is harder, but as they say, if it was easy everybody would be doing it. Sort of like ink jet printing... ;-)
Paulr,
The market has been a wonderful place for vinyl lovers the last decade. I picked up a new Sota open chassis vacuum Millennia turntable with SME Series V tonearm. The quality of output has improved incredibly over the last decade. New small companies are reissuing remastered LP pressings that are of better quality then ever before. I see the same happening with film. It will be around a long time being supported as a niche part of the market. And there is nothing wrong with that as long as we can still get the emulsions we love.
Regards,
"but as they say, if it was easy everybody would be doing it. "
This is perfect example of the kind of elitistist thinking that clouds these issues.
The only people who object to something becoming easy are the people who believe they have some kind of higher status based on mastering something difficult. In the arts, there have always been people who objected to newer easier processes, because they feared losing their elite status if the "unwashed masses" (to borrow John's phrase for the people he shares the planet with) could do what they do too. The fear runs even deeper if there's a chance that their status was based on nothing BUT mastering that process.
This is why artist's who keep the emphasis on their vision don't seem to be threatened by new processes that make their work easier.
As far as the damage that chip making causes the environment, yes it's significant. But you're talking about the one-time manufacture of hard goods that are reuseable for years. In the world of film, you're talking about the chemical processing that has to be done every time film is developed or a print is made. The hidden benefit to digital snapshooting is that consumers tend print in a way more similar to serious photographers: they only print the images they want. As opposed to the minilab way, which is to print all 36 crappy exposures on every roll (sometimes twice).
Learning how to control real photographic materials is harder
Really, Jorge? How do you know this?
Maybe you should stay away from things you know nothing about.
True Paul,
Although, for some the process has become the definition of who they are or want to be, and are threatened if someone comes along and can recreate what they do and more. These people fade into the woodwork when no one is willing to listen to status fluff any longer.
This thread has brought on a sudden desire to plunk on a jazz LP and enjoy for a while.
Later.
Ok, lets start with Butzi. How do I know? Well, see, you assume that I know nothing about ink jet printing or how to use Photoshop, as usual your assumption is wrong. So, I did not have to move to ink jet printing because I needed more "control." How come you did? I will gladly stay out of things I know nothing about when you do the same.
Paul, do not even go there. I worked for 15 years in hazardous waste disposal and environmental remediation. Chemicals used in the darkroom, including fixer have little impact on environmental issues. As a matter of fact even those used in one hour labs have little impact compared to manufacturing of chips. In this case you are talking about something you know nothing about. Chip manufacture is not a "one time" process as you would like us to believe, while it is true that chips are made once, this is a continuous process, they dont stop once they finish one chip. To better illustrate this issue, Intel and IBM were one of our better customers and spent millions cleaning up their shit. Kodak OTOH only had problems with heavy metals disposal, which compared to the crap I had to clean up at Intel or IBM it was a drop in the bucket.
Furthermore, all of the chemicals used in home darkrooms break down by the action of bacteria and oxidizers as well as UV light to form simple carbon compounds like methane with the exception of silver. The concentration of silver in spent fixer is so small that is easily removed by activated carbon, a normal procedure in sewage and water treatment plants. And even if it was not removed, you would have to drink fixer in a daily basis for years before you saw heavy metals poisoning.
As to your "insult" about being and elitist. Here is the definition of elite:
1. A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status: “In addition to notions of social equality there was much emphasis on the role of elites and of heroes within them” (Times Literary Supplement).
2. The best or most skilled members of a group: the football team's elite.
Somehow I am not offended by your implication.
The funny thing is this claim that "artist" who emphasis their vision are not threatened by new processes, like only those who make ink jet posters are the ones who can make claim to this exalted position. You are right Paul, all the photographers who came before us were only interested in the process, not in making good photographs...... You are the only ones who care about vision....lol
It is time you guys come up with a new argument, this one is wearing rather thin.
Hey Paul,
Jorge says,
"Well, see, you assume that I know nothing about ink jet printing or how to use Photoshop, as usual your assumption is wrong. "
But Paul, I think you're correct. Reading some of Jorge's other threads he has said the following:
“I can assure you it would take me a lot less time to learn and master PS and do an ink jet print…."
"This is what I dont get, even the most ignorant person about digital printing (like me)”
So, based on his own admission, he knows nothing about inkjet printing or PS. All he is trying to do is highjack the thread to turn it into another inkjet vs whatever he likes argument. Waste of time to give him his much needed ego boost.
Well, see, you assume that I know nothing about ink jet printing or how to use Photoshop, as usual your assumption is wrong.
You claimed that 'learning to control real photographic materials is harder".
I'm asking you how you know.
Show me the credentials. In fact, show me credentials that demonstrate that you actually, via first hand experience, are familiar with the difficulty of learning of both traditional photographic materials, and digital photographic materialsl.
Have you been teaching how to use both? Have you been using both, extensively, to produce work for public display? Have you produced a considerable quantity of work using both (Let's be charitable and call 'considerable quantity' something on the order of hundreds of prints which you'd be willing to hang in a public show. Or, if you prefer, several years of hanging shows with work done both traditionally and digitally.
I await your exibition record and credentials.
Paul,
See my post above. Jorge has already answered your questions with his previous posts. ;-)
LOL....ah Paul, you assume your opinion matters enough to me to show you my "credentials". OTOH I dont need to make 100 prints to know how well a project works, one is enough. I am sorry to see you dont have this ability....
Printing tech, I saw some of your wedding shots.....I now know why you are hesitant to post any shots here... ;-)
Really Jorge? Considering my web site is not yet up and running, the only photos I can think of online may be from a friend from high school after being handed a disposable camera at her wedding and being "hired" on site ;-)
Great swing on topic changing. Like Paul, I'm still waiting to see how you can be experienced in digital printing and PS, and at the same time be the most ignorant person about it. We're waiting.....
uh huh...!
But you know, talk is cheap. You have my challenge, and I gladly extend it to Butzi. I will put any of my pt/pd prints against your ink jet posters, I know why I did not choose the ink jet route and/or digital negatives, do you? are you as sure and confident of yourselves and your art?
Hell I will even let you choose who judges them.... :-)
Ah,
Here we go again. Whenever you're cornered, you got back and try a stab at some old thread. This one is easy Jorge.....stop trying to change the topic and answer the question.
How can you be both an expert and yet be ignorant? You said it....we didn't.
So, it appears you're either clueless, or a liar. I'll leave it up to you to choose.
I spent a lot of time learning to make silver prints in a darkroom and I've spent a lot of time learning to print digitally. The big difference for me has been that with traditional silver printing I probably got about 90% as good as I was ever going to get from a technical standpoint in the first year or so and I certainly learned all the necessary techniques that first year (except for unsharp masking). Almost all of the time after the first year or so was spent trying to gain that elusive extra 10% of improvement. Plus a lot of the improvement over the years didn't take any effort in the sense of studying complex subject matter and learning complex techniques, it was more a matter of learning from experience (and from attending workshops by people like John Sexton and Bruce Barnbaum) how to better apply the techniques I already knew (with the exception of unsharp masking, which I didn't learn until after I had been printing seriously for maybe five years).
Learning to print digitally has been much different and much harder. It took a lot of study and a lot of effort to even make a respectable print and it's taking a whole lot more time and study and learning new things to even approach making an excellent print or feeling that I'm anywhere close to knowing all I need to know. When someone talks about digital printing in terms of pushing a few buttons I know they've never done it seriously. After about five years of off and on effort I'm still studying new books, still learning new techniques, and I think (or hope) I'm improving all the time and will continue to improve as long as I keep at it.
Alt processes are a different matter. Some are pretty easy to do reasonably well - cyanotype and vanDyke brown come to mind as two that weren't overly difficult. Gum was much more difficult. I've never tried platinum but I'm sure it's much more difficult as well. So I'm not comparing digital printing with those processes, only with traditional silver printing.
LOL....ah Paul, you assume your opinion matters enough to me to show you my "credentials".
Well, I admit I'm not surprised that a guy with no credentials at all refuses to show them.
You know, talk is cheap, Jorge. Take up my challenge. Show us your credentials and exhibition history.
" this case you are talking about something you know nothing about."
Jorge,
I sat in on a number of environmental hearings in both Colordo Springs and Providence that were both concerned with photographic silver thiosulfate in the waste water. In Colorado Springs it became a crisis issue because the concentration of silver ions grew high enough at several points (this was in 1989 and 1990) to kill off the seeded bacteria in the sewage treatment plant. The result each time was that tons of untreated sewage, silver and all, overflowing into the environment.
The study that was sponsored showed the sources of the silver ions to be, in the following order:
1. Dental and medical darkrooms
2. School darkrooms
3. Minilabs
4. Home darkrooms
Larger commercial labs were not a major contributor because they tended to comply with recovery laws and to employ better technology.
As a chemist, I trust you know that chemical effluent can be damaging to the environment even if it is in theory biodegradeable. If you doubt this, I'll be happy to send you some research, if for no other reason than to encourage you not to dump silver ions down the drain.
Your main point is irrelevent, though, because it presumes that traditional cameras are free of microchips. We were specifically talking about consumer snapshot cameras (the type that are rapidly being replaced with digital ones). These, whether point and shoot or SLR, contain microchips, circuit boards, and batteries, just like the digital cameras. These consumer cameras require chips to be manufactured in addition to requiring the constant use of chemicals over their life.
As far as how easy it is to use photoshop for photography, I'm curious to know if you've ever used it to make high quality prints (and I realize I'm tempting you to jump on me with cirucular reasoning like "you can't make high quality prints with photoshop"). I ask this because I personally used the program for 10 years as a designer before using it for my photography (for anything beyond making proofs). I pretty much had to go back to school. The learning curve was a steep one.
Brian-
I'm just curious about your experience with unsharp masking and silver printing.
My question is, what fraction of that elusive 10% do you think masking might have covered?
I agree with everyone who says making a good digital print is hard, but I still think this misses the more important point. If a tool came along that made it easy, this would take nothing away from anyone.
The mechanics of writing a symphony are complex; the mechanics of writing a blues song are simple. Mastery of one or the other says absolutely nothing about the value of what you have to say. The composer John Williams is an impressive technician compared with bluesman Robert Johnson (who probably only learned three chords his entire life). But Williams does nothing besides rip off Wagner and Mahler, while Johnson plays what's in his soul. Musicians and critics revere Johnson, while they make fun of Williams. Which in the end makes all his skill and knowledge seem kind of sad. It's too bad he didn't put it to use for something real.
You know, talk is cheap, Jorge. Take up my challenge. Show us your credentials and exhibition history.
What happened with the "final product is what matters?"....Do I need to teach a subject to know its capabilities? Furthermore, just because you teach it does it mean is good? No on both counts. But then the final product is what matters, here is your chance to showcase your exceptional expertise, to show all of us how much more control you have and finally shut me up once and for all......what are you afraid of?
I know why the printing tech wont take me on given what I have seen of his work, but I am surprised at your reluctance. You have some nice work, you have printed hundreds of prints for show, what is the problem? Are your credentials that you teach a workshop a few times a year? Is this what I am supposed to be impressed with? You have all these impressive credentials, prove it!
C'mon Butzi, once and for all shut me up.....
Paulr, I hope you are not equating sitting on environmental hearings and working in the waste disposal and environmental remediation field for 15 years. Did I say just cameras Paul? What about your printer, your computer you keep updating every 3 years, your extra memory. All of this is far more damaging that the chips made for 35 mm cameras.
As to the effluent from commercial activities, this is far different than what the printing tech implied in his ignorant comment about household darkroom chemistry. Let me remind you that the EPA made effluents from household streams exempt from regulation precisely because they dont represent any problems for treatment. As a chemist I know far better than you the effects of the chemistry in bacterial breakdown, and I will tell you that with exception of the fixer, the rest of the chemicals are in fact beneficial for bacteriological breakdown.
Printing tech, I am no more clueless than someone pretending their ink jet posters will last more than a few years... ;-) But then again seeing your work I know your tier level in the wedding industry. I am not surprised now why you call your prints "paltinum" toned chromira, I am sure you hope the name will wow them....not the work.
What happened with the "final product is what matters?
Ah, yes, another attempt to change the subject.
Look, Jorge, you're the one who started admonishing people 'Stay away from things you know nothing about'.
I'm thinking that when it comes to the relative difficulty of learning to use traditional photographic materials and digital photographic materials, you don't know what you're talking about.
So prove me wrong. Show us your credentials and exhibition record.
here is your chance to showcase your exceptional expertise, to show all of us how much more control you have and finally shut me up once and for all......what are you afraid of?
Fer chrissakes, Jorge, you sound like a twelve year old. Every time I see your name in a thread, it's in an antagonistic and defensive tone. Your "inkjet poster" schtick is growing quite old, and so is your argumentativeness. If photography is this stressful for you, I recommend baking or needlepoint.
Paul - I had to grin when I read your question. As I'm sure you know, my numbers were approximations. But if the 90% number is accurate I'd say unsharp masking took me maybe a half a percentage point further. It didn't make a "knock your socks off" difference but for some prints, especially those with a lot of important shadow detail, I thought it made a subtle but noticeable improvement. I never became an expert at it, the method I used was taught by John Sexton and was considerably simpler than Howard Bond's method. I used it sparingly, partly because it was pretty hard for me to stike the right balance in making it effective without also making its use obvious.
paulr - You're certainly right. My point wasn't that digital was better because it was harder. I was just relating my own experience with traditional and digital because it was the opposite of what someone else said or implied about the relative difficulty of the two methods. I learned a long time ago that if I show a print and start talking about how difficult it was to make - had to get up at 3 a.m., hiked ten miles in snow, hung from my toes upside down from the edge of a cliff with my 8x10 camera to get the picture - I'll see a lot of yawns. Nobody cares about how hard it was to make a photograph and rightfully so, a mediocre photograph that was hard to make is still a mediocre photograph.
'It's a misconception to think that back in the days when all things were made by hand, most people could afford to have them. They couldn't.'............................................................When I was small kid, my father took along while he shopped for a car, we stopped by the Mercedes showroom, at that time you could buy a handmade Mercedes sportscar for $5600.00, this was less than a Cadillac, Mercedes weren't always prohibitively expensive, now MF and some LF gear which have traditionally 'pay thru the nose' are dirt cheap, just a short while back, two weeks ago I believe, one of my lenses, the Mamiya RB 100-200W (used to retail for $4000.00) sold on e-bay for $568.00 NEW!!! I already have that lens or I would have bid on this one.
A lot of precision film gear is going for nowhere near what it use to sell, and once they're sold time will pass and this won't come around again, nobody will ever make this gear like it was made up until now, perception is everything, some folks look at the downside/this to be the death of film, I see it as a blessing for folks who're financially challenged to pick up some fine gear at nowhere near what it use to see.
Who cares who stops selling film gear, there are hundreds of film cameras on the planet, they're well made to last forever, I've got more than a dozen of them, and live in the same city w/two technicians who can fix all of them, so anybody like me is set for life, cameras is not the issue, it's two things, film and technicians to fix the gear.
Exactly Butzi, the printing tech was talking about environmental impact, something he knows nothing about and which is far different than photography (of which he knows little too). Now, do I have to give you the number of exhibitions and magazines I have been published to prove my credibility? Why is that? If you are such a great exhibited photographer, with such a wealth of work of such great quality, then I would have thought that if a nobody like me told you they know why they did not choose ink jet posters and can prove it to you by comparing with your prints, you would have been so confident in your process that shutting me up would have been an easy thing to do.
As I told you, I dont have to explain myself, give your proof that I know what I am talking about or submit my CV for your approval. All I have to do is put one of my prints right next to one of yours and let it speak. You are not willing to do that, that in itself is very telling.
As I told you, I dont have to explain myself, give your proof that I know what I am talking about or submit my CV for your approval. All I have to do is put one of my prints right next to one of yours and let it speak. You are not willing to do that, that in itself is very telling.
No, the issue is not whether your prints are better or worse than mine. The issue is whether you know what you're talking about with regards to the relative difficulty of learning to use traditional materials and learning to use digital materials.
Stop trying to change the subject, and just tell us what your credentials are with regards to your pronouncements about the relative difficulty of learning to use traditional materials and digital materials.
The issue is whether you know what you're talking about with regards to the relative difficulty of learning to use traditional materials and learning to use digital materials.
No, the issue is whether I know enough about making ink jet posters and being able to choose to follow a different process based in this knowledge. The best proof that I can offer is with the "final product." It really does not take a mental giant to learn about raster image process programs, monitor calibration programs, working with layers and masks in PS, etc, etc.
Content versus content it is impossible to say that your print or mine is better, it would all depend of whom we would send the print, but if we are going to constrain ourselves to the process and having the knowledge to make the best decisions, then the best proof is the print. You want me to explain myself to you, I dont have to do that, you are nobody to demand my CV. All I am telling you is I know enough about ink jet printing to be able to make a judgment, and based on that judgment I am confident on my results. Are you?
That's all he'll do Paul....change the subject. He's been caught again and it drives him crazy. It's become tiring watching him squirm all the time.
I'm off to our cottage for 3 weeks to lounge around the lake. I'll probably finish the coding for our website to allow Jorge to criticize my real work rather than blathering on about a few point and shoot snapshots I did for a friend. I wouldn't expect anything less of him.
Bye guys....enjoy the rest of August.
Caught? by you? LOL........
Jorge;
These guys seem to have it in for you. I worked for 30 years with the USEPA and developed regulations under the following ACTS
1. Hazardous waste disposal under RCRA. I conducted testing on landfills, chemical, biological and physical disposal methods and all of the work on Incineration for 8 years.
2. Developed federal permits for PCB destruction by chemical processes and incineration under TSCA.
3. Developed the 503 waste water sludge recycle and disposal regulations, specifically Subpart E-Incineration and thermal disposal methods under the 1977 amendments to the CWA. The whole Congressional Intent for the 1977 amendments was to drive tightening of effluent guidelines from all industrial discharges.
4. Developed a number of toxic emissions regulations under the CAA 1990 Ammendments for Copper Smelting, Wood preservation, sludge incinerators (emphasis on dixions), Magnesium Manufacturing, etc.
5. Lectured to Graduate Students at Howard University in the Civil Engineering Department.
Wrote three books on hazardous wate disposal.
Consulted for many national and international industries on hazardous waste permitting and incinerator designs.
In all that 30 years, I don't remember ever finding silver as a problem pollutant. Enough of any material, except water, will kill bugs in secondary Activated Sludge plants. Most of you have silver in your mouth, and the mercury in your fillings are of the greatest concern.
I'm doing both silver printing, digital from film and digital capture. Silver is harder. Digital is easy.
See my work at http://genecrumpler.home.att.net
Jorge struggled with some of my CFR Federal Standards while at Rollins Environmental:>)
I'll put one of my fauxtograf posteurs, or whatever anyone wants to call them, next to anyone's platinum prints.
Not with the goal of winning a pissing contest, and yes, with the complete acknowledgement that this is a change of subject ... I'll do it to demonstrate the pointlessness of these comparisons. Good work is good work. I stand behind what I do, and people are free to judge it any way they like.
And you're right, Jorge, learning a raster image program doesn't take a mental giant. Neither does mixing chemicals, coating papers, or contact printing. But doing either of them well takes a lot of learning and a lot of work. If you were unable to get results you liked from one of the processes in question, I'm not sure whose side of the argument that supports. but it doesn't sound like it's yours.
No, the issue is whether I know enough about making ink jet posters and being able to choose to follow a different process based in this knowledge. The best proof that I can offer is with the "final product." It really does not take a mental giant to learn about raster image process programs, monitor calibration programs, working with layers and masks in PS, etc, etc.
Look, Jorge, it's really very simple. You stated that "Learning how to control real photographic materials is harder" than learning to use digital materials.
You further stated "you assume that I know nothing about ink jet printing or how to use Photoshop, as usual your assumption is wrong. "
And you further took people to task, suggesting that they not write about something they know nothing about.
So I've asked you - is this subject (the relative difficulty of learning to use traditional materials versus the difficulty of digital materials) something you know something about?
It's not about final product, or whether your art is better than my art, or even whether your chosen set of materials (pt/pd printing) is better than my set of chosen materials (scanning and inkjet printing). It just boils down to whether or not you have any significant experience that would allow you to make authoritative statements about the relative difficulty of learning to use traditional materials versus the difficulty of learning to use digital materials.
You've often put people down, claiming that they don't know what they're talking about. You've repeatedly insisted that other people meet your standards for proof of competence.
So, Jorge - show us your credentials and exhibition history.
Yeah Gene, but is good to see them here making fools of themselves talking about things they dont know. I sure did strugle with your standards, but then thanks to you and the permit you wrote for Rollins on TSCA they were paying me a lot of money to route disposal, so in a sense I owe my early retirement to you.. :-)
Neither does mixing chemicals, coating papers, or contact printing. But doing either of them well takes a lot of learning and a lot of work. If you were unable to get results you liked from one of the processes in question, I'm not sure whose side of the argument that supports. but it doesn't sound like it's yours.
Nice try Paul, first I never said it was dificult to learn the chemistry part. But you and Butzi imply that learning how to make a good ink jet poster is only for the gifted. NOT!
Finally someone takes my challange! just choose who you want for us to send the prints and it will be in the mail this week. I hope you will play fair and not choose Butzi or the printing tech, we all know where their bias lies. Maybe Kirk Gittins would volunteer..... :-)
"What about your printer, your computer you keep updating every 3 years, your extra memory. All of this is far more damaging that the chips made for 35 mm cameras."
What about them? I'd have a computer and a printer even if I never used them for photography. Just like you do. Unless you've found a way to get online using a contact printing frame and a foil hat. The computer I'm sitting at right now is from 1999, and has a 600MB photoshop file grinding away ever so slowly in the background. I'm not rich enough to be a big polluter just yet.
"Let me remind you that the EPA made effluents from household streams exempt from regulation precisely because they dont represent any problems for treatment."
No, they made them exempt because they're impossible to enforce. I know this from conversations with the EPA. It's much easier (although demonstrably innefective) to let the small darkrooms pollute freely while holding the big labs to extrememly tough standards for allowable silver concentration.
"As a chemist I know far better than you the effects of the chemistry in bacterial breakdown, and I will tell you that with exception of the fixer, the rest of the chemicals are in fact beneficial for bacteriological breakdown."
I've seen plenty of research suggesting this isn't so, but at any rate, fixer's all I was talking about. All these processes use fixer, and we have darkrooms a-go-go that don't recover their silver and just dump it all down the drain.
Gene, I don't think you'll have too much trouble finding information on the silver related problems they were having in Colorado Springs. I think it was the local DEP that was dealing with it.
LOL...Paul, you keep repeating yourself, you will keep getting the same answers. You chose to believe I know nothing about ink jet printing, fine with me. I dont care and as I wrote I am under no obligation to prove myself to you. All I have is the final product, you claim the final product is what matters, put your money where your mouth is.
Paulr, why bother arguing with you on something I am confident you know nothing about? You are right in all counts Paul, happy now?
I propose we take up a collection for the "Get Jorge Laid" fund. If that doesn't put an end to these threads, I don't know what will.
"You chose to believe I know nothing about ink jet printing, fine with me."
Yawn....
We don't choose to believe.....we just quoted you saying it. Man your circular reasoning is hilarious.
Goodnight.