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P3D Re: Bruce is Born To Run
- From: Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>
- Subject: P3D Re: Bruce is Born To Run
- Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 11:53:33 -0600
George Themelis wrote:
> >I'm referring to a paint brush and canvas, a manual camera...
>
> Why stop at the manual camera? Why accept commercial
> processing of your film? Go a few steps further...
> process your own film. And I am not talking about this
> new miniature 35 mm film on a flexible base... No sir!
> I am talking about large glass plates, 1 hour exposure
> times (in full sun please!)... etc. Ahhhh... These
> were the times... Maybe it was not fun but it was
> serious business. Yes sir! You've got to labor to
> enjoy the results...
>
Why indeed? A few years ago, when I was working in the Wall St. area
of Lower Manhattan, I spent every lunch hour walking around the
neighborhood with my Pentax K1000SE taking pictures of the buildings.
It got me out of the office, and I got some nice pictures out of it.
After a while I noticed that the ease of use of the camera and long
(36 exposure) film rolls were leading me to just snap away without
thinking about what I was doing. When I looked at all my slides, not
just the good ones, my success rate was really low.
I started wondering about what I could do to improve the quality of my
pictures, and my success rate. I started reading photo technique
books (and discovered that almost all of the 35mm books are the same).
I looked at going to Medium or Large Format. I bought a used 4x5
camera and taught myself to use it. Although the cost and effort
involved in an individual image has gone up, my image quality and
success rate has also increased. I now stop and think about what I am
trying to do. Is the lighting right? Is the composition good? Are
there any distractions (garbage cans, street signs, people wandering
through)? I now enjoy my photography more than I used to. Is it more
work? Yes, but it is also more fun.
Eventually I'll do my own B&W processing. Why? Because it's cheaper
than using a good professional lab, and (secondarily for my purposes)
I'll get some more control over the process. I'll still use a pro lab
to do my slides because the hassle of doing it at home is too great, I
don't shot that many slides anymore (except for stereo), and there
isn't any control that you can get by doing it on your own (except by
going to extremes that I don't want to do).
Glass plates are still readily available from Kodak (TMax 100 and
Tri-X are in the catalog and any Kodak emulsion is available by
special order) and other manufacturers. I haven't bothered with them
because I don't need them. If my fooling around with 4x5
astrophotography shows excessive film flatness problems (one of the
strong points of glass plates) I may consider using plates. I have
coated my own printing paper for cyanotype, and will probably do so
for platinum/palladium.
By doing doing the work yourself you get the satisfaction of having
done it, you learn what the process is all about and there's the
possibility of doing it better than what can be done with only
commercial products and processes. The beer and mead that my wife
makes is far better than any commercially brewed beer. The 12 inch
telescope mirror I helped polish with the local club is better than
any commercially available mirror for amateur astronomers. When an
individual produces something the quality of the end product can be
set as high as is desired. Whether or not the end result matches the
desired quality level is only dependent on the individual's skill
level and willingness to complete the project. A commercial product
can not be made better than what it costs to meet a price point that
the market has set for that product, or the company will go out of
business.
If I hadn't gone back to lower tech cameras I never would have gotten
a Lubitel, and in turn I never would have done stereo photography. Do
I use my 4x5 for everything? No I use it for what best suits it
(mostly things I want to hang on the wall). Have I stopped using
35mm? Mostly, except when I want images for documentation (for model
airplanes), or some astrophotography or twin full frame stereo.
Likewise the Sputnik and Lubitels get used for stereo travel pictures.
--
Brian Reynolds | "Dee Dee! Don't touch that button!"
reynolds@xxxxxxxxx | "Oooh!"
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds | -- Dexter and Dee Dee
NAR# 54438 | "Dexter's Laboratory"
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