Warning - a certain tone of Luddite exists here, and this is more about art than professional photography, or is it?
Progress has its ups and downs. So we find out that there is no 100 year CDROM, and no real 200 year inkjet print. No checks returned from the bank, no spare parts after 7 years.
Kodak built a household name in film, paper and reprographic supplies. This year, no longer will Kodak make the papers that turned out to be a sort of magic ink capable of outlasting so many hard disks, CDROMS, and computer systems to read them; a medium capable of communication with no special equipment required for the viewer. There is a big market for ink and paper, but will it always sell well without the magic, the working artists making great images that inspire others to at least put a battery in their digiwatzit?
After some years, the only good record of today's information age may be its waste matter. What will tell the story as we intended it to be told? Who will pass the moments of our experience on to the future?
After all the hype, and all the money spent, it turns out that a good fiber black and white print is still likely to survive, especially the carefully prepared Pt, or even the well done toned print. Alas, of my Epson prints have faded or changed a bit so far, even those Ultra ink ones. The quad prints turned purple. Yes, I do live in Los Angeles. The inkjets were sold to me as a sort of "virtual magic ink". That word ought to be banned! The hulks of their now unloved and inkless chassis will rest broken in a dump, again perhaps the most "permanent" sort of archive today. I wonder what will be thought of them when discovered some day. Okay, the ink was magic. The prints did fade after the secret viewing time elapsed, and they did so in better than the advertised specification of 200+ years!
Fiber silver prints I did in junior high school still look great, and well, the RC ones from that same time are going already. At the time, few people used the word "archival" much, although the word "permanence" was used.
Does anyone feel a bit criminal by selling someone an inkjet, or an RC color print that will fade in 15-20 years? Or is it more that at least some more immediate and less expensive option gives them joy for at least a few years? Well, perhaps there are some who might like the reprint dollars of a print that fades at exactly one year. How can anyone trust the current claims for print life?
It is said that all kinds of very long lasting images can be made, if one has enough money and time. Platinum photogravure plates, ceramic photos, and others offer long life. The ancients used stone, which worked remarkably well in spite of current acid rains and earthquakes. What do you find as the best way to go today?
There is the question of how long is long enough. For me, I hope that some images make it 200-300 years. Long enough for someone to have a moment musing over those funny things we did, or how we dressed, or even how many fingers we had or the odd shape of our non-optimized heads. For more gifted photographers, I wonder... I can't express what marvelous fun I get looking at old photographs or even paintings. Some of the most humble ones are the best - the ones that documented a place in a time.
This is a time that allows the LF photographer to produce some very amazing work about this century, or at least the turn of it. Sure, in 50 years, this will all be figured out, however where the print from LF won't have a little chip in it that erases it if there aren't enough credits in the owner's account, who knows if the same will be true of the solution that fixes the fading print, crashing hard drive or self-erasing CDROM.
When you work in LF, do you think of an end result suitable only for the immediate time frame, or do you find yourself wondering about communicating to others living far into the future? What sorts of subjects would you consider important to pass along through photography, using the magic ink of the photograph to travel in time? Do you wonder if perhaps one day somebody may only find your 'rejects' instead of your best work? And which medium would you select today, assuming you might do the work yourself, to convey your images to the future?
How important are print life and relevance to future generations in your work?
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