are black and white photographers vain, all this talk about archival image making

[georg16nik]

...Of course if you've bought all of those standards then you'll have all the answers won't you. On the other hand if you haven't bought them then you have no idea what they say but you're claiming there is a standard as though you know what's in them.

From 2011 to 2015 I've quoted/paraphrased several ISO docs related to photographic materials, storage, etc.
Just use the search on APUG and try to find them. I am not gonna repeat every year like a parrot. In 2017 some other will ask the same question.
I am pretty sure that PE and a few other knowledgeable folks are tired of repeating the same stuff over and over as well.

 

[RobC]

From 2011 to 2015 I've quoted/paraphrased several ISO docs related to photographic materials, storage, etc.
Just use the search on APUG and try to find them. I am not gonna repeat every year like a parrot. In 2017 some other will ask the same question.
I am pretty sure that PE and a few other knowledgeable folks are tired of repeating the same stuff over and over as well.

All I'm asking is for a simple answer and not a diatribe on how to archivally process a print. Once again, how long must a print life be to be considered archival? The answer is as simple as "X years". I don't belive there is an answer to that question which isn't accompanied by a huge amounts of caveats, ifs and buts. i.e. Its imposibble to define with any accuracy so its a meaningless term to say a print is archival. You can only say you have done such and such archval processing and archival framing but you can't say how long a print will survive.

 

[removed account4]

On the orig. question - are we vain?
Does Raggedy Anne have cotton parts?
Art is vain. People (all) are vain.
Question is if our vanity produces anything other vain people like. Hopefully alot.

hello hihosilver

i agree with what you have said, but preserving test strips for contact sheets
( yes i saved them all ) for 35 years seems to be a bit excessive !
i've started throwing stuff out in the past 15-20 years i should probably go through
all the garbage i have saved and toss it ...

 

[HiHoSilver]

'Sounds unmistakably human, J. I mainly develop in a Patterson tank I've kept for 30yrs since using. It still works beautifully. I assume that I and everyone else has some place they do things differently. Maybe alot. Another screen name for me would easily be misfit. When I posted about V.Meiers - it seemed to whoosh over the heads of the critics - "The only normal people are the ones you don't know well." I won't be one that wants to finger anyone about being off the reservation. By design or accident, we seem a group of those driven - either towards technical prowess or artistic. Certainly when those two attributes combine - great stuff follows. But until the meeting happens - it does make for lively discussion.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

All I'm asking is for a simple answer and not a diatribe on how to archivally process a print. Once again, how long must a print life be to be considered archival? The answer is as simple as "X years". I don't belive there is an answer to that question which isn't accompanied by a huge amounts of caveats, ifs and buts. i.e. Its imposibble to define with any accuracy so its a meaningless term to say a print is archival. You can only say you have done such and such archval processing and archival framing but you can't say how long a print will survive.

 

[Jim Jones]

Why should any medium for art need to be permanent? In the history of the earth none is. Copies of copies may go on ad infinitum, but the most archival print will eventually turn to dust. Second law of thermodynamics.

Any art of value to future generations should be permanent enough for future generations to use and enjoy. Long before photography, artists strove to make their creations durable. For example, we have the originals of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, master paintings of half a millennium ago, the Hagia Sophia, and perhaps millions of museum treasures. This should apply to many other items, too. Just Wednesday I spent several hours helping a friend return a TV that failed after a few weeks of use. It doesn't have to be like this. I use a few tools that are older than my 83 years. Shouldn't artists strive to be as competent as craftsmen?

 

[removed account4]

hi jim

i totally understand what you are saying and where you are coming from ...
but i have to admit the ephemerial quality of a retina print
is one of the things that attracts me to them. i can hold one in my hands and
watch the paper change before my eyes and it reminds me every time i make one
and maybe scan it, or look at it, that nothing is for ever ... and while it is a wonderful gift
to have a photograph from another time period, or to give someone a photograph that will last beyond
our time here on this planet, if i have something, a photograph that fades or turns to black ( or white ) its conversion to
a simple state of being blank makes the time the photograph was around to look at and enjoy even
more of a gift. that said, if someone is paying me for a photograph that has a long lifespan,
i will do my best to make that lifespan long by washing and treating the film and print with the respect
and chemistry and clean water it deserves.

 

[Arklatexian]

Are black and white photographers vain? All this talk about archival image making

It's not vanity - it's doing something right. If you print on FB paper you need to get the fixer out of it. That's what we call archival - getting the fixer out of the print. Otherwise, why bother with FB paper?

Well said! I hope that I am able to leave a picture of me that will survive so a great grand-child will know what its great-grandfather looked like. Vanity, hell no, I just wish I had a picture of one of my great-grand fathers who died in the late 1880s. We have letters written by him but no photographs that we know are of him. In photography, I have been taught since the middle 1940s that every photographer who does his/her own processing, has the obligation to make their work as archival as they can. Why? As the quote above says: because it is the right thing to do. I would add to the above quote, that if you don't get the fixer out, why bother printing at all. If you don't agree, then I am sure sorry about that, for you, not me....
Regards!

 

[Sirius Glass]

+1

 

[Alan Klein]

If you want to be remembered for a long time, scratch your name on a rock.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[Sirius Glass]

If you want to be remembered for a long time, scratch your name on a rock.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

That is vandalism and it defaces the rock.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

That depends on who owns the rock.

 

[fotch]

Do it right is easy if you always strive to do it right.

 

[removed account4]

Do it right is easy if you always strive to do it right.

i agree with this, if it is the final print, and maybe a road map on how to get there, or the archival test print, so you don't stain the good ones ..
but is it necessary to archivally proccessed all the test strips, outtake prints, test prints ?

while i did this for 20, years ( saved everything ), i've started to conserve water, and chemistry more and more which means things hit
the trash more and more. i don't know when this started but maybe 7-10 years ago i was going to save a
tray full of test strips and print-refuse ( bad prints, garbage prints, stuff that didn't work out )
that was in a post fix rinse tray, and i said to myself - why am i saving these ?
and i threw them all out. later today i will probably fill a trash bag with the innerds of a shelf of photo boxes
full of things have for some reason archived, and i realize aren't worth archiving.

 

[Paul Howell]

All I'm asking is for a simple answer and not a diatribe on how to archivally process a print. Once again, how long must a print life be to be considered archival? The answer is as simple as "X years". I don't belive there is an answer to that question which isn't accompanied by a huge amounts of caveats, ifs and buts. i.e. Its imposibble to define with any accuracy so its a meaningless term to say a print is archival. You can only say you have done such and such archval processing and archival framing but you can't say how long a print will survive.

Rob C is quite correct, there is no acceptable industry standards, Over the past 50 years I have seen numbers that someone seemed to have pulled out of thin air, when questioned could not provide the source, 75 years, 300 years, even 500 years. I recall that Fred Pickering wrote in one of his newsletters that an archival print should last 300 years, no reference as to how make that determination. I have seen different numbers for RC vs FB, when I last asked Ilford about RC vs FB Ilford, at the time, had taken the position that a well processed RC print will last as long a FB print.

What is the best method to achieve this standard, Kodak and Ilford do not agree, and the methods have changed over time, in the 60s it was recommended to use hypo eliminator, not so much in today's world. So if look at my prints that I made in the 60s and early 70 when I used hypo eliminator can I still call them archival? The only prints that I have that have not held up over the past 50 years are ones that were printed on GAF RC, on the other hand prints made on Kodak RC paper have held up as well any of my FB prints.

10 years or longer someone posted a proposal to set up a quality control company, like Good House Keeping who would certify prints as being archival,
needless to say that there was quite a bit of blowback.

If asked by a buyer about my work being "Archival" I tell them that I process for permanency using current methods, but as far I know there are no universal standards so I don't really know, and as I will long dead cant give a guarantee.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Maybe what we should wish for is that images are NOT archival. Thank goodness, most of them are now digital and will disappear with the
next software revolution. They can be temporarily saved on discs, which at least have the social redeeming quality of being useful for skeet
shooting. And selfie sticks can double for growing tomato vines.

 

[Sirius Glass]

only 625 more posts to go and you willbe at 20K !
but you still won't break the yearly record which was 10K in a year
you are sometimes at 100 posts a day so you will be at 20K very soon !

where's laz !?

You just woke up?

Passed you weeks ago, so it is time to draw attention to yourself by starting many, many threads again. But you will still be behind if you are in a race.

:munch::munch::munch::munch::munch:
​

 

[removed account4]

i didn't realize it was a competition to have a high post count. you have me beat, hands down, by 3.5 years !
if I had only known it was a competition ... I would have posted more feverishly 4 years ago . oh well ...

good luck reaching your goa! you still have a lot of posting to do ( your 100 a day won't cut it ) if you want to beat the other guy's 10,000 posts in a year, record.

 

[RobC]

If asked by a buyer about my work being "Archival" I tell them that I process for permanency using current methods, but as far I know there are no universal standards so I don't really know, and as I will long dead cant give a guarantee.

I think the best answer to "How long will last" is "It will out live you if you look after it".

 

[ME Super]

good luck reaching your goa! you still have a lot of posting to do ( your 100 a day won't cut it ) if you want to beat the other guy's 10,000 posts in a year, record.

That all depends on your length of year. One year on Earth is approximately 365.2425 days. At 100 posts a day, that would work out to roughly 36,500 posts. So 100/day would get you to 10,000 posts in a bit over 3 months.

 

[Berkeley Mike]

An Archival state is simply completing an adherence to a clean process. Otherwise the work is not done. As to the quality of the images, I'm afraid that I don't worship at the alter of mid-19th century imaging. Boring. Editorial at best. Mostly they helped people to refine the process from camera to film to processing. There are exceptions, of course. However, do you think that the folks who made those at the time knew that they would be exceptional? Same for us going forward.

As to digital frailties that film folk like to flog; the market will take care of that. There will be money to be made in the conversion of our current file formats.

FWIW, I love this Calotype: Robert Adamson, David Octavius Hill 1843 - 1847

 

[Alan Johnson]

The real enthusiast may print on vellum which lasts for 5000 years whilst archival paper lasts only 200-500 years:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/educati...lum-has-been-scrapped-to-save-just-80000.html

 

[Bob Carnie]

The real enthusiast may print on vellum which lasts over 1000 years whilst archival paper lasts only 200-500 years:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/educati...lum-has-been-scrapped-to-save-just-80000.html

Tell me more about Vellum paper , who here uses it nice article .

 

[Bob Carnie]

I must be bored... but I googled vellum paper it seems you can get it everywhere, but from this copy and paste it seems that its no longer the real deal

Vellum is a unique type of paper used for arts and crafts. Though it used to refer only to a type of paper made from calfskin, modern vellum is made from cotton andwood pulp. It can be used for making greeting cards or scrapbooking, as well as for tracing designs.

Ok so who is using calfskin for their prints?????

 

[faberryman]

Because it is part of the craft of image production. It takes very little extra time and effort to do it right.