Historic Parallels Glass Plate to Film... Film to Digi

[schafphoto]

I stumbled on an interesting article at a hotel that noted that professional glass plate photographers were reluctant to use film because they saw it as an amateur medium.
Much like the reluctance I remember when digital first was introduced and film photographers ( like myself) were not impressed by the technology, resolution, color, etc... of the new medium in its infancy.
Anyone seen this kind of parallel written about or have old issues of History mag lying about? I think the mag was American History or history Magazine, definitely not a photo mag - what photo mag does history articles :-(
The article was something like History of Photography (or the history of Kodak), around six years ago.
Thanks

[MDR]

Strictly speaking the glass plate guys were right. Glass stays flat in the holder = sharper pictures, glass gives you a reason for having an assistant/mule with you during a landscape shot. Carrying a case of glase plates helps you build muscles and attracts babes. You probably had the same discussion during the transition from wet to dryplate. I know some photographers used wetplates well into the 1890 because they prefered the wetplate look.

[jp]

It's their medium of choice, so of course they are going to prefer it to film or digital. Journalists like to fabricate drama between old and new, where practicioners were pleased to have a choice between old and new.

Wet plate has a huge advantage in terms of grain size over film; the silver is wet and isn't in the form of big crystal grains at the time of exposure, so it's essentially grainless. Not a big deal for contact printing, but it's something to brag about in the megapixel wars climate. It can also be wiped clean and redone in the field if you don't like the shot and don't want to throw away another sheet of film. The aesthetic is of course a matter of debate; some people like factory perfect film like we get from Kodak or Ilford. Other people like the inherent unpredictable defects (aka unique character result from craft) of something handmade. I've got some glass plate negatives here (old ones) and it appears to be a mix of commercial dry plates and wet plates. I'm guessing it spans a time period and/or the original photographer re-used some glass plates to experiment with wet plate. Some are neutral tinted gray, and some have a brownish tint, perhaps indicating pyro and normal developer use as well.

[jp]

Along a similar topic, Eastern Illustrating was a huge postcard company a hundred years ago. They used glass plates long after people converted to film. They could write (in reverse by hand) on the negative to label/caption it, and the glass negative was sturdier than film for the purpose of contact printing. http://www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org/photo-collections/eip.html is a local museum that has the massive collection of glass plates.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

And before that Daguerreotypists complained that wet-plate collodion cheapened the art (they still do). Of course, don't forget that Daguerreotypy cheapened painting, and became the refuge of failed painters (Baudelaire).

[Jody_S]

Is there any principle that can be generalized here? Can we get a bunch of gun nuts to give up their semi-auto scoped rifles in favor of pointy sticks and rocks, because the technology has cheapened the act of killing some poor defenseless animal meandering about the forest?

[John Kasaian]

Is there any principle that can be generalized here? Can we get a bunch of gun nuts to give up their semi-auto scoped rifles in favor of pointy sticks and rocks, because the technology has cheapened the act of killing some poor defenseless animal meandering about the forest?

There lots of black powder and archery guys in my neck of the woods, and fly fishing is still very popular---more sporting some would say.

[Jay DeFehr]

Is there any principle that can be generalized here? Can we get a bunch of gun nuts to give up their semi-auto scoped rifles in favor of pointy sticks and rocks, because the technology has cheapened the act of killing some poor defenseless animal meandering about the forest?

It's funny you should make your comment -- my late brother-in-law was an avid hunter, and once expressed to me (a non-hunter) his desire to do just what you suggest -- hunt deer with a spear. He said he'd walked up on so any bedded-down deer in his life, he was sure he could be successful, but, ironically, spear hunting deer is not legal in Oregon. He never mentioned bear hunting with a pointy stick.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

... He never mentioned bear hunting with a pointy stick...

Apparently the benefits of old technology are fetishized, but the limits rarely mentioned.

[K. Praslowicz]

Wet-platers also bemoaned dry-platers for the same reasons. http://www.apug.org/forums/forum50/37945-run-hills-new-technology-coming.html

[AF-ULF]

It is called "creative destruction" by the economists. A new technology comes along and replaces an existing, mature, technology. Whenever the new technology appears, it is limited compared to the old and it takes time for it to develop. When dry plates first appeared, they offered the advantage of being portable and they could be developed long after the shot was taken. Initially, they were slower than wet plate and not as good a quality. The advantage of not carrying a darkroom around with you eventually won out, but it took time. For those serious about quality, it took longer than the "early adopters." Film offered advantages over dry plates, but the quality was not there initially. As the quality improved, more photographers started to use it. Same with digital. Initially, the quality wasn't as good as film. Remember the Sony Mavica? It was a breakthrough camera, but not anywhere near the quality of film. It was also expensive compared to film cameras. As the quality improved, and the price dropped, digital won the hearts and minds of most photographers. The instant feed back and ability to send the image instantly to a client changed the work flow of photography.

The history of photography can be a case study of new technologies slowly developing and taking over existing technologies. The image quality of the daguerreotype was far superior to that of the paper negatives. But as the quality of paper negatives improved, and as wet plate work improved, the daguerrotype faded. Salt prints were replaced by albumen. Albumen was replaced by gaslight. Gas light was replaced by enlarging papers. Enlarging papers are being replaced by printing technologies. Wet plate was replaced by dry plate, which was replaced by film which gave way to digital. With each transformation, some adopted the new technology early, before it matured, while others clung to the old because of its advantages over the new.

[Jay DeFehr]

I don't think creative destruction is the right model. Creative destruction describes the devaluation of wealth as a basis for a new economic order. I think a more appropriate model is Disruptive Innovation (see Clayton M. Christensen ), which describes innovations that disrupt existing markets and create new ones. Not all the innovations in photographic history have been disruptive, many have been sustaining, and the distinction is an important one. Photography itself was not a disruptive innovation, because it was initially impractically difficult, and didn't disrupt the imaging market, but the Daguerreotype was a disruptive innovation, and created a new market that disrupted an old one. Wet plate, dry plate, film, and color film were all sustaining innovations, some evolutionary (dry plate, film) and others revolutionary (wet plate, color film), but digital imaging is a disruptive innovation. Image quality is a red herring in all these innovations, distracting from a new value system on the part of the consumer. I've said it over and over -- the consumer, not the producer, defines quality.

[AF-ULF]

Okay. Disruptive innovation--I'll go with that one.

[John Kasaian]

I still drive a manual transmission. Just sayin'

[Jody_S]

I still drive a manual transmission. Just sayin'

You lucky bastard. They don't make minivans for driving around the suburbs with manual transmissions anymore. My last one was a 1980s Ford Aerostar (cargo!).

[Jody_S]

Sounds as if you haven't had a run in with a pissed off Moose or Bear. Even a surly Badge is a problem if you are in the wrong place.

Bolt action rifles are preferred by more snipers than semi-auto.

The only time I've ever worried was while camping in the Canadian arctic, in polar bear country. I still didn't carry a rifle, because I would never have seen a polar bear until it was too late. So I brought Cree guides who carried the rifles. I have had numerous run-ins with brown bears (including babies, but I didn't stick around long enough to photograph those) and moose, can't say I've ever seen a badger though.

[Jody_S]

In case there is any doubt, my post was obviously intended to be humorous. I am well aware that there is considerable overlap in the USA between large format photographers and gun enthusiasts. Heck, at one point in my life I was a gun enthusiast myself, owning several semi-auto handguns. And in Canada, that requires some perseverance to get through layers of bureaucratic obstacles. I got rid of them all when a drunken neighbor threatened my life, and I found myself looking for my shotgun. A shotgun is not the proper means of ending disputes with neighbors.

[E. von Hoegh]

In case there is any doubt, my post was obviously intended to be humorous. I am well aware that there is considerable overlap in the USA between large format photographers and gun enthusiasts. Heck, at one point in my life I was a gun enthusiast myself, owning several semi-auto handguns. And in Canada, that requires some perseverance to get through layers of bureaucratic obstacles. I got rid of them all when a drunken neighbor threatened my life, and I found myself looking for my shotgun. A shotgun is not the proper means of ending disputes with neighbors.

Depends on the neighbor.