Could traditional photography products go the way of the micro-brewery?

[Ian Grant]

Ron, you should be a little more positive.

Of the 18,000+ members of this site there are a great many people who are prepared to put a lot of time and effort into the furtherment of conventional "analog" photography.

Peole like Sandy King work hard to keep alternative processes and ULF image making alive and thriving.

The currently absent (on indefinate leave) "Jorge" championed Platinum/Palladium printing.

Others build their own cameras, or devise new developers, it's a very diverse membership.

But we all try to introduce people to the merits and benefits of film and conventional photo-papers.

Finally we must support our sponsor who need us as much as we need them

Ian

P.S. I should add you, as in your own way your trying to make emulsion making and coating available to others.

You know, with 18,000 members, I have learned after reading this thread that after all is said and done, more is said than done!

PE

 

[Photo Engineer]

Ian, it is a matter of percentages. How many talk and how many do.

Sandy is one of those who do. I know him and have seen his work, but there are few of us who are 'microbrewers' at heart.

PE

 

[r-s]

American beer ROCKED until there were supermarkets (and, therefore, a need to make the stuff so that it lasted 6 months in a can).

Actually, it was the Market Research industry (which sprang into power after the war) that was responsible for bland beer, and bland comestibles in general. Read Vance Packard's "Hidden Persuaders" (itself writtein in 1957, so this is not exactly news).

The MR wonks determined (whether true or not) that the post-war American palate preferred "light" beer, and "light" food (i.e., whitebread), over products with flavor. The less you could actually taste a product, the better it would sell, according to the MR boys. So, "light beer" (and I believe Packard used the term, back in '57!), and the proliferation of bland, tasteless foodstuffs foisted on an entire culture.

I must say that whether their initial observation was correct, it has certainly become correct. (I would not be surprised if their "observation" was more of a self-fulfilling prophecy.) People don't like food that they can taste!

You can wrap all sorts of words around it, nuance it to hell and back, but in the final analysis, people in this country, by and large, do NOT like food that they can taste. Given a choice between bland, flavorless food, and something with flavor, they will, based on my own observations, opt for the no-flavor stuff, declare the "with-flavor" stuff to be "too strong", "too hot", or "something wrong with it", as if flavor was an indicator of food being "off".

For variety, they will doctor their bland, tasteless food with salt. Lots of salt.

Personally, I pin the blame on the MR industry. I think that more than observe "national tastes", they shaped them. It was B.F. Skinner, I believe, who declared that companies (and governments too, if memory serves) should, rather than attempt to "give the people what they want", instead, make the people want what they've got to give them. Much better for the bottom line. (Why bother going to the trouble -- and expense -- of making your food flavorful, when you could, at a far lower cost, make the customers want food that they couldn't taste? (And for those adventerous souls who demanded a bit more, there's always the salt-shaker to liven things up!)

Beer was a natural for this kind of process. I'm not a brewer, but it seems to me that it's got to be easier (and cheaper) to produce a mild variety of horse-piss, than to create something with flavor. Think about it -- when you start giving your foods flavor, there's always the possibility that you'll end up with a bad flavor! But when the benchmark is the absence of flavor, how can you go wrong?

So, convince the teeming masses that they want stuff they can't taste -- form mass opinion by convincing the individual that "everyone else thinks this way" -- and the battle is over before it began!

The same process works in politics. Look at "push-polling" -- convince the "average voter" that "everyone else" supports the candidate/position/policy/law in question, and lo and behold he will support it too!

But getting back to beer -- I can't drink it anymore. Seems to be something wrong with a vein in the back of my skull. I get an awful migraine when I drink, so, I don't drink. But, before this happened, I used to enjoy a nice Guinness (warm), or, a decent home-made brew a friend made (a rather stout brew the name of which I have forgotten).

Imagine that, I had to get back on OFF topic!

 

[copake_ham]

Actually, it was the Market Research industry (which sprang into power after the war) that was responsible for bland beer, and bland comestibles in general. Read Vance Packard's "Hidden Persuaders" (itself writtein in 1957, so this is not exactly news).

The MR wonks determined (whether true or not) that the post-war American palate preferred "light" beer, and "light" food (i.e., whitebread), over products with flavor. The less you could actually taste a product, the better it would sell, according to the MR boys. So, "light beer" (and I believe Packard used the term, back in '57!), and the proliferation of bland, tasteless foodstuffs foisted on an entire culture.

I must say that whether their initial observation was correct, it has certainly become correct. (I would not be surprised if their "observation" was more of a self-fulfilling prophecy.) People don't like food that they can taste!

You can wrap all sorts of words around it, nuance it to hell and back, but in the final analysis, people in this country, by and large, do NOT like food that they can taste. Given a choice between bland, flavorless food, and something with flavor, they will, based on my own observations, opt for the no-flavor stuff, declare the "with-flavor" stuff to be "too strong", "too hot", or "something wrong with it", as if flavor was an indicator of food being "off".

For variety, they will doctor their bland, tasteless food with salt. Lots of salt.

Personally, I pin the blame on the MR industry. I think that more than observe "national tastes", they shaped them. It was B.F. Skinner, I believe, who declared that companies (and governments too, if memory serves) should, rather than attempt to "give the people what they want", instead, make the people want what they've got to give them. Much better for the bottom line. (Why bother going to the trouble -- and expense -- of making your food flavorful, when you could, at a far lower cost, make the customers want food that they couldn't taste? (And for those adventerous souls who demanded a bit more, there's always the salt-shaker to liven things up!)

Beer was a natural for this kind of process. I'm not a brewer, but it seems to me that it's got to be easier (and cheaper) to produce a mild variety of horse-piss, than to create something with flavor. Think about it -- when you start giving your foods flavor, there's always the possibility that you'll end up with a bad flavor! But when the benchmark is the absence of flavor, how can you go wrong?

So, convince the teeming masses that they want stuff they can't taste -- form mass opinion by convincing the individual that "everyone else thinks this way" -- and the battle is over before it began!

The same process works in politics. Look at "push-polling" -- convince the "average voter" that "everyone else" supports the candidate/position/policy/law in question, and lo and behold he will support it too!

But getting back to beer -- I can't drink it anymore. Seems to be something wrong with a vein in the back of my skull. I get an awful migraine when I drink, so, I don't drink. But, before this happened, I used to enjoy a nice Guinness (warm), or, a decent home-made brew a friend made (a rather stout brew the name of which I have forgotten).

Imagine that, I had to get back on OFF topic!

Sorry, but while you're historically correct to a point - I do not think that your thesis is true today. The maturation of the American palate is well-documented.

You seem to be "blanding" all of America while ignoring the fact that due to maturing tastes of many of us combined with significant inflows of immigrants there are many Americans who enjoy "flavorful" food and drink.

Point in fact, for the last decade salsa sales have far outpaced sales of ketchup. Asian cuisines of various cultures, as well as Mexican and other Latino food types, are prevelant throughout the country. Regional foods such as Southern BBQ, Cajun etc. can now be found everywhere.

The very "comparative example" of this thread (i.e. "microbreweries") can be found in both urban and rural areas. I can take you to a brew pub in Manhattan tonight and in Great Barrington, MA tomorrow night. Even the most basic diners these days offer at least one or two imported brews, as well as a craft beer (e.g. Sam Adams or Anchor Steam) or two.

You may choose bland foods if you prefer - and many do. But that does not mean that the rest of us have to do so. And increasingly we don't. In fact these days, about the blandest food I eat is sushi and sashimi!

So please don't blend us all in with the bland!

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Have we gotten past Zima yet?

 

[Photo Engineer]

David;

I've demonstrated my taste for Asian food. Thanks again.

PE

 

[r-s]

Sorry, but while you're historically correct to a point - I do not think that your thesis is true today. The maturation of the American palate is well-documented.

You seem to be "blanding" all of America while ignoring the fact that due to maturing tastes of many of us combined with significant inflows of immigrants there are many Americans who enjoy "flavorful" food and drink.

Point in fact, for the last decade salsa sales have far outpaced sales of ketchup. Asian cuisines of various cultures, as well as Mexican and other Latino food types, are prevelant throughout the country. Regional foods such as Southern BBQ, Cajun etc. can now be found everywhere.

The very "comparative example" of this thread (i.e. "microbreweries") can be found in both urban and rural areas. I can take you to a brew pub in Manhattan tonight and in Great Barrington, MA tomorrow night. Even the most basic diners these days offer at least one or two imported brews, as well as a craft beer (e.g. Sam Adams or Anchor Steam) or two.

You may choose bland foods if you prefer - and many do. But that does not mean that the rest of us have to do so. And increasingly we don't. In fact these days, about the blandest food I eat is sushi and sashimi!

So please don't blend us all in with the bland!

Please note that I specifically referenced this program being something birthed in the postwar era. The book I cited was published in 1957.

The fact that it has taken this long for the bulk of a continent to rediscover its tastebuds is testimony to the efficacy of the program. It worked. For decades.

As to myself, I will only say that living in a very rural area, I am restricted to either whitebread foods, or "indiginous"-type Mexican foods (the groceries will sell what their customers will buy), neither of which is my cup of tea.

So, I am forced to lean on others to "cop for me". Ironically, the one who "cops" the most is a cop. He mentioned that when he stopped by the Asian grocery to pick up several bottles of Sri Racha, the clerk's eyes bugged out and he mentioned something about "you like HOT!!!!" So, I think my "likes flavor" street cred has legs.

 

[Photo Engineer]

r-s;

How about nuoc mam or kimchee? Home made saurkraut? Hot curry garlic relish? Wasabi?

One spicy thing leads to another. We have all of those in the fridge.

PE

 

[r-s]

I grind my own horseradish, which I grow behind the barn. Also grow hardneck garlic. I am also experimenting with some too hot to describe peppers (of the chinensis branch of the tree), which seem to be very close (or identical) to the notorious Datil peppers, grown by the Minorcans of Florida. So far I've managed to get two plants to survive two years; the "trunks" seem to be turning to wood. Eventually, they should be shrub-sized bushes with large, deadly crops hanging off their branches year round, bwaha ha ha....

The absolute hottest stuff I ever tasted (before I had a taste for the taste) was some kind of hot mango chutney made by a company named Abdul's, or something along those lines, from India.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I believe Abdul's mango chutney is stocked here locally. I'll check. We have 4 horseradish plants outside the back door. Horseradish in sour cream with beets. Mmmmmm. God Russian dish.

I have not purposely eaten white bread in over 30 years. Only when forced on me in a canape or at a restaurant. My favorite right now is Arnold Nut bread.

PE

 

[copake_ham]

I grind my own horseradish, which I grow behind the barn. Also grow hardneck garlic. I am also experimenting with some too hot to describe peppers (of the chinensis branch of the tree), which seem to be very close (or identical) to the notorious Datil peppers, grown by the Minorcans of Florida. So far I've managed to get two plants to survive two years; the "trunks" seem to be turning to wood. Eventually, they should be shrub-sized bushes with large, deadly crops hanging off their branches year round, bwaha ha ha....

The absolute hottest stuff I ever tasted (before I had a taste for the taste) was some kind of hot mango chutney made by a company named Abdul's, or something along those lines, from India.

The chili (a.k.a. chili pepper) is a Western Hemisphere native. On the Scoville Scale the hottest, by far, is the habenero (also known as the Scotch Bonnet in the English speaking West Indies).

The chili-based foods of Asia are based on the fact that the Spanish, upon conquering the Aztecs, began to disperse the chili throughout the world.

Other Western Hemisphere originated produce includes: maize (corn), tomato and potato.

So before Columbus:

1) Asia had no chili-based foods (the term "chili pepper" was a corruption based on equating the hotness of the chili to the native East Indies peppercorn).

2) Italy had no tomato sauce.

3) The Irish had no potatoes.

4) Corn was not feeding the livestock and people of the world it does now.

Oh, BTW, the horseradish is also (I believe) a native Western Hemisphere foodstuff.

 

[r-s]

I have not purposely eaten white bread in over 30 years.

There is one type of white bread that I enjoy -- quite a bit. It is the long French type, with a crisp crust and soft, light inside. Torn in half, buttered on both sides, and then squeezed back together, mmm...

I am also in a several-decade's long withdrawal from what some might consider a type of "white bread" (I don't), which I hope to some day figure out how to make. It's called "onion board", a sort of "Jewish soul food." (The things I gave up when I left "The City", oy vey!)

 

[r-s]

Habanero is in the Chinensis family. That family does have the hottest things on earth.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I love crusty baguettes with melted brie. I don't class that as white bread.

Horseradish has been cultivated in Asia for years. It is a staple of the Russian Orthodox Easter celebration. The tomato was once considered a poison and a famous Victorian novel used the tomato as a poison in the telling.

Cannabis plants are the biggest cash crop in the US. See the URL I posted on the joke thread for a treat.

PE

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

r-s;

How about nuoc mam or kimchee? Home made saurkraut? Hot curry garlic relish? Wasabi?

One spicy thing leads to another. We have all of those in the fridge.

PE

Kimchee... If there is one good reason above all the others to visit Vancouver (or any other place on the West Coast I suppose) is to find a grocery store with 30 varieties of kimchee: beans, sprouts, cabbage, peas, fish, carrots, daikon, octopus, etc. Name it and the Koreans have found a way to lacto-ferment it with lots of chili and spices!

 

[copake_ham]

I love crusty baguettes with melted brie. I don't class that as white bread.

Horseradish has been cultivated in Asia for years. It is a staple of the Russian Orthodox Easter celebration. The tomato was once considered a poison and a famous Victorian novel used the tomato as a poison in the telling.

Cannabis plants are the biggest cash crop in the US. See the URL I posted on the joke thread for a treat.

PE

Your correct on the horseradish - as I recall now it is native to Siberia and Central Asia.

BTW: the Western Hemisphere provided another native plant to the world of which we shouldn't be too proud because it's killed millions over the years: Tobacco

 

[Terence]

BTW: the Western Hemisphere provided another native plant to the world of which we shouldn't be too proud because it's killed millions over the years: Tobacco

True. But it killed off the smokers. As a life-long non-smoker, I see it as saving me from paying for their Medicaid bills in the long-run. My grandparents gave up smoking in the 1930's because they knew it wasn't good for you. Any smoker who claims otherwise of full of $#!+.

Always look on the bright side . . .

As for the brew-pub of film . . . I REALLY hope it comes to pass, but I'm hedging my bets with a freezer full of film. I still buy new film and cycle through the older stuff, but I have what is easily a life-long supply of 70mm film and multiple 70mm backs for various cameras, including LF. So long as I can find fixer I am no longer worried about my ability to do B&W "traditional" photography. My LF film horde is good too, but might not be a "life-long" supply. 400 sheets of Ilford 4x5 from a fellow Apugger should hold me for years, though.

 

[langedp]

Dear All,

A very interesting thread...I will do a more detailed reply when I have some available time: One clear offer though, so many people are interested in photo coating and technology I am more than willing to arrange a full and in depth tour of our factory here in the UK, emulsion making, coating and finishing say a 6 hour tour with our experts to show and tell...

... late May or Early June would be a good time...its up to you !

Better still we can debate the future of film over lunch !

Kind Regards

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited

Seems like this thread just went right on past your offer Simon!! Keep us posted on this tour. If my schedule permits, I'll take you up on it.

 

[PKM-25]

What also might be helpful is locating a billionaire photography collector who is passionate about traditional image making. Then get them to hire Dean Kamen and his team of geniuses at Deka Research to re-invent emulsion making and coating

I know two that might fit this bill, one is an aire to the Champion Spark Plugs fortune, the other a guy who owns the 2nd largest aircraft leasing company in the world, both passionate about photography.

They are nuts over digital, but do respect my work and might hear me out.

 

[aldevo]

I know two that might fit this bill, one is an aire to the Champion Spark Plugs fortune, the other a guy who owns the 2nd largest aircraft leasing company in the world, both passionate about photography.

They are nuts over digital, but do respect my work and might hear me out.

Just don't bring up my reference about the original micro-brew enthusiast - Fritz Maytag.

Maytag lost millions on resurrecting Anchor Steam.

 

[Curt]

A program on the Discovery Channel showing future tech. about a scientist who perfected using an ink jet printer to spray on heart tissue to paper. He cleaned and sterilized a print cartridge and filled it with a clear media with heart cells then printed the cells in the name of the University on paper and later checked and the heart cells were beating.

Why couldn't emulsion cartages be made and sold for a printer to coat media? You could print out some film then print out some paper.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Give it a try. I watched that same program. It was quite interesting.

PE

 

[Alex Hawley]

Why couldn't emulsion cartages be made and sold for a printer to coat media? You could print out some film then print out some paper.

Remember, you gotta keep the coated paper in total darkness during and after the coating.

 

[dancqu]

Remember, you gotta keep the coated paper in
total darkness during and after the coating.

An easy to see and work in level of lighting
is possible with Graded paper emulsions. I think
emulsion chemistry must be much simplified. Dan

 

[Curt]

Yes it would take someone like Ron or a chemist to get something like that going. The program was way too cool not to mention it here after thinking about Sean's ideas. Who knows?