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Thread: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

  1. #11

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    Re: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

    Yes, thanks for the links.
    Principal Unix System Engineer, Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems

  2. #12

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    Re: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

    Quote Originally Posted by Ulophot View Post
    I have ... wondered how ...he appeared to have turned the Zone System into "place the highlight on VIII and expose."
    Me too.

    It's just a hunch, but my guess is that eventually, after years of experience, some of us end up selecting only those subjects which match the capacity of our materials and process. Just as we learn to spot the lighting, texture, composition and other elements which will result in a nice print with little effort, we do the same with respect to dynamic range. In other words, it worked for him.

  3. #13

    Re: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Lee View Post
    Me too.

    It's just a hunch, but my guess is that eventually, after years of experience, some of us end up selecting only those subjects which match the capacity of our materials and process. Just as we learn to spot the lighting, texture, composition and other elements which will result in a nice print with little effort, we do the same with respect to dynamic range. In other words, it worked for him.
    Actually that's exactly how I meter...placement on the highs
    Works everytime

  4. #14

    Re: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

    And thanks for the link..its a hoot reading the old newsletters...did the workshop with him in 1979
    BEST WORKSHOP EVER

  5. #15

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    Re: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

    Quote Originally Posted by peter schrager View Post
    And thanks for the link..its a hoot reading the old newsletters...did the workshop with him in 1979
    BEST WORKSHOP EVER
    Small world...I was in Fred's '79 workshop, too. Made one of my favorite images at the quarry in Dummerston.

  6. #16

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    Re: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

    I think Pickers summary of the zone system was a simplistic solution for simpletons like me who hasn’t seen the advantage of using a more complex zone system.

  7. #17

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    Re: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

    Quote Originally Posted by BrianShaw View Post
    I think Pickers summary of the zone system was a simplistic solution for simpletons like me who hasn’t seen the advantage of using a more complex zone system.
    What advantages do you find?
    Bruce Barlow
    author of "Finely Focused" and "Exercises in Photographic Composition"
    www.brucewbarlow.com

  8. #18

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    Re: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

    I'd like to tack on a few thoughts, having downloaded the set of newsletters and read through perhaps twenty. I'll note first, that I a just finding my way back to serious work after many years and am "filling up" on great B&W photographers' work and thoughts. I had just finished reading the book of A. Adams's correspondence when this came along.
    Though the newsletters speak most directly in many places to the large format B&W artist, I would recommend them without reserve to one and all. The newsletters began in 1973 and naturally contain a number of concerns, as well as specific references to materials and equipment no longer available. But what they offer as well
    is a wealth of ideas, approaches, and wisdom on all facets of our art. Picker was unfailingly blunt about "what works and what doesn't work," what materials were up to snuff and which not (RC papers were new then), and so forth. His message, however, was that serious photography is hard work, and hard enough without introducing more variables than necessary; that learning to see is the hard part, not the technical. One need not agree with every particular to learn, or be reminded, that the goal is the final result -- in his case, as in that of many of forum members, the fine print.
    Picker knew some of the most famous photographers of his time well, such as Adams, Strand, and Caponigro, and shares correspondence and other presentation of insights from them as well as his own and his experiences in the many workshops he gave.
    The newsletters are a source of inspiration, a guide to technique and how to think about it, and a trove of gems of all kinds. For me, enough to also order copies of the Zone VI Workshop and The Fine Print (both very inexpensive used, at the big retailers now). Notably, Picker makes a point in one newsletter about being horrified that the first had helped to spawn a Zone System "cult." The Fine Print, he said, was a much better book, but the first far outsold it.
    Philip Ulanowsky

    Sine scientia ars nihil est. (Without science/knowledge, art is nothing.)
    www.imagesinsilver.art
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/156933346@N07/

  9. #19

    Re: Fred Picker #51, June 1987 Newsletter

    Quote Originally Posted by Alan9940 View Post
    Small world...I was in Fred's '79 workshop, too. Made one of my favorite images at the quarry in Dummerston.
    That's where I made my first real negative and print..it turned out to be so simple but plainly hidden from view!
    All the instructors shared all they knew ..a first for me As most educators want to convince you in someway that it will take years of hard work to reach their level..which of course is total nonsense

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