When people boast about the integrity of film

[The_Traveler]

When people boast about the integrity of film and how one 'had to get it right in the camera', point them to this article:

Magnum and the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing

 

[timor]

What's your point ?

 

[480sparky]

There's still a prevailing attitude among some that using film precluded any post work once the shutter closed.

 

[timor]

There's still a prevailing attitude among some that using film precluded any post work once the shutter closed.

Oh, that.

 

[cgw]

A-list printers--film or digital--never grew on trees. Many of Avedon's books of collected work show the same sort of marked-up proofs his printers used. People like Pascal Dangin work at the same level in digital. What you see isn't usually what was shot.

 

[gsgary]

The original print he has written on is still very close those are minor adjustments because he is a perfectionist

Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk

 

[limr]

This article relates an interview with a master printer and provides some interesting commentary on the art of darkroom printing and the state of Magnum as an agency.

What I don't understand is why it was presented in such an inaccurate and insulting way.

 

[terri]

A-list printers--film or digital--never grew on trees. Many of Avedon's books of collected work show the same sort of marked-up proofs his printers used. People like Pascal Dangin work at the same level in digital. What you see isn't usually what was shot.

Agreed, and you rarely encounter photographers who work routinely in the darkroom as promoting the fallacy that they "got it right in camera." <--- That is not meant as a "boast" of film's "integrity," but rather is a standard to try to make one's negatives as good as possible so as to reduce the time needed in the darkroom to obtain an outstanding print.

Larry Bartlett, Tim Rudman, and other master darkroom printers routinely include such markups to show their work. It's no different than slogging through a series of steps in front of a computer to achieve one's final digital output.

This article relates an interview with a master printer and provides some interesting commentary on the art of darkroom printing and the state of Magnum as an agency.

What I don't understand is why it was presented in such an inaccurate and insulting way.

Because Lew is the one who presented it. Lew presents himself as someone who is humbly seeking perfection, which is going to be challenging for him from that lofty perch on that high horse of his. He has shown over his tenure at TPF his distaste for film enthusiasts and seldom misses a chance to take a general swipe at them. Even if we work hard in the darkroom, as outlined above, we are “merely craftsmen.” (His words from some other derogatory post about analog photographers.)

<Yawn>

 

[The_Traveler]

There's still a prevailing attitude among some that using film precluded any post work once the shutter closed.

This article relates an interview with a master printer and provides some interesting commentary on the art of darkroom printing and the state of Magnum as an agency.

What I don't understand is why it was presented in such an inaccurate and insulting way.

If you were insulted that's realy something in you and not in the words.
My point, as 480sparky made so clearly, that film is not some pure issue that no-one edited and that SOOC is also not something to necessarily beat one's chest about.

All photographs are the result of an editing process and I believe that thinking one process is inherently better than another or truer than another because of its provenance is silly and pretentious.

 

[The_Traveler]

Because Lew is the one who presented it. Lew presents himself as someone who is humbly seeking perfection, which is going to be challenging for him from that lofty perch on that high horse of his. He has shown over his tenure at TPF his distaste for film enthusiasts and seldom misses a chance to take a general swipe at them. Even if we work hard in the darkroom, as outlined above, we are “merely craftsmen.” (His words from some other derogatory post about analog photographers.)

<Yawn>

I seek perfection in my own work, although I've never produced a perfect picture, and generally don't care at all about other's motives.
I don't disdain those who work with film, I think that the worshipping of process is silly.

 

[terri]

All photographs are the result of an editing process and I believe that thinking one process is inherently better than another or truer than another because of its provenance is silly and pretentious.

Thank you for proving my point so eloquently. Silly and pretentious? Where are you getting this whole attutude from? Someone's words?

If you were insulted that's realy something in you and not in the words.

That should satisfy you, then. Without the misguided use of an article which failed to make your intended insult for you.

 

[terri]

I don't disdain those who work with film, I think that the worshipping of process is silly.

Sure. Okay, then. Perhaps you could refrain from using words like "craftsmen" in a derogatory way when directed at analog photographers in the future. You know, there are many ways to be a craftsman and it's generally held to a high standard of work output.

 

[480sparky]

On a film forum I haunt, we have travelling negatives and we post our different results in addition to our process.

 

[The_Traveler]

I like pictures - and how they were made should be irrelevant.
Unfortunately, if they are made with film, here there is a thumb on the scale.

 

[limr]

If you were insulted that's realy something in you and not in the words.

Bullsh$t. I am insulted because you were insulting.

My point, as 480sparky made so clearly, that film is not some pure issue that no-one edited and that SOOC is also not something to necessarily beat one's chest about.

That article had NOTHING to do with that. You brought up that trope because you felt it was time to make fun of the film photographers again.

All photographs are the result of an editing process and I believe that thinking one process is inherently better than another or truer than another because of its provenance is silly and pretentious.

And yet, you do take pains to proclaim the wonders of digital post-processing and put down those who don't do enough of it.

Please. You're stirring the pot, and you know it, and I once again call bullsh1t.