I do not believe what I have read...

cliveh said:

When a post discusses HCB, lets just remind ourselves in visual terms what we are talking about -

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Guss25YP-...AAMPo/EL9OkTUmKbI/s1600/Cartier-Bresson00.jpg

Can any memember of APUG produce a picture like this?

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I saw this and immediately thought of some of Nicole's work.

As many have posted, it depends on the photographer (and the printer).

I have done a fair amount of printing for others, although I certainly wouldn't describe myself as a master printer.

IMHO, there is nothing that will improve your printing as much as printing for others.

Photography is about many things, but communication is one of the most important.

Photographers who can communicate that can, with the help of a talented and perceptive printer, create better photographs.

And printers who assist photographers with vision in turning that vision into great prints, can be invaluable as well.

In my case, I really enjoy the darkroom. I truly believe that in my case, my experience printing aids my photographic vision, because it always helps me to have in mind the print's capacities when I'm creating the negative.

It is much the same with transparency work - I find that if I don't have the projected transparency in mind when I take the shot, most likely it will come out mediocre.

But that is me. If I didn't get the joy I get from printing, but had someone good working with me instead, I expect that I would be happy too.

Matt: I am interested in why you think that "nothing will improve your printing as much as printing for others." I am not taking issue with your statement in any way, but I have never printed for anyone else and I would like to know how you think it has improved your printing.
Thanks,
Dan

In thinking about master printers, I've sometimes thought of the negative as analogous to a script produced by a playwright, who turns it over to directors and actors for their own interpretations of the work, usually without consulting the author. Even though I very much enjoy the entire process which results in a silver gelatin print, I would love to produce a negative worthy of a master printer's interpretation someday.

But I have been curious about comments by fellow Apugger's in this and other threads about how they don't enjoy various aspects of the darkroom, or they feel the "process" is much less important than getting to the true goal, which is the image. I tried and rejected digital photography because I never felt engaged by the digital workflow (and I didn't care for color work or the look of digital black and white). But what keeps those of you who don't care for the darkroom (and all the frustrations with disappearing product lines) shooting film as opposed to going over to digital? What preserves your dedication to film?

baachitraka said:

Mr. Keith,

This is question by itself, Is it possible to create a master piece(not accidental) when you are not the part of the whole?

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Do you make your own film? Paper emulsion? Developers? Frames? Matting? Lenses?

Each of these items have a distict roll in the look of the final product, most of us outsource many, if not most, of the tasks required to take a photo. This can be by choice or necessity.

Even if we are shooting wet plates and making paper from pulp and emulsion from raw chemicals we would probably still outsource the making of the glass and the mining of the silver and ....

Specialization doesn't mean quality falls, in fact allowing Ilford to make my film instead of me making it allows me to make higher quality photos with less work.

The difference in outsourcing lab work vs outsourcing film manufacturing is just a line in the sand, its only a matter of degree.

If we have to do the mining, logging, and refining to make our materials, we will have precious little time left over to take take pictures and make prints.

I am quite happy to be able to concentrate my efforts in places i enjoy and have the people around me add to the quality of my work.

ostgardlaw said:

Wwhat keeps those of you who don't care for the darkroom (and all the frustrations with disappearing product lines) shooting film as opposed to going over to digital? What preserves your dedication to film?

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Speaking for myself of course... my lack of printmaking at present has nothing to do with lack of interest in getting [analogue] prints done, eventually.

I simply don't have time to do darkroom stuff. It's certainly not lack of ability or funds or equipment. I can do silver, Pt/Pd, lith, cyano, and have experience with splitgrade etc. and some lovely bleaching tricks that Per V. taught me... R.I.P. Per! I have three enlargers, a bunch of enlarger lenses, access to two darkrooms plus my own spare bathroom which is now full of pyro concoctions... and enough film and paper to sink a battleship.... and two full-time jobs. I also write a lot, so I simply don't have time to fuss over prints. So it is by choice that I don't spend a lot of time in the darkroom.

And I also do a lot of chromes and instant film, still. I consider those to be finished work, at least in the analogue sense.

Plus I do a fair amount of experimental digital and hybrid as well; I have two rather high end digicams and such. I just don't enjoy the digital process for b&w at all. The only part of b&w that I feel I must do with digital now is IR movie project I am working on; alas, without rolls and rolls of HIE it's just the way it has to be.

So, long story short, the printmaking phase is something I can easily put off. I might spend the majority of my time on that eventually, who knows. But for now, having the ideas in my head is more important than getting them on paper.

If I counted the total number of projects going right now, I guess it's a dozen or so. So there's simply not enough time in the day to worry about prints. To put it another way, I have too much respect for prints to half ass them.

markbarendt said:

If we have to do the mining, logging, and refining to make our materials, we will have precious little time left over to take take pictures and make prints.

I am quite happy to be able to concentrate my efforts in places i enjoy and have the people around me add to the quality of my work.

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I agree. It's really about where we spend our time. I could live (?) with going to the grave having never printed most of my stuff. If somebody shuffles through the shoebox and sees something worth printing then fine. If not, well I'll be happily shooting a very expensive camera on a big puffy cloud anyway

Some time ago I tried to think of what kind of photography could allow me to completely own the process from start to finish. The idea being, you know, if my big mouth and lack of respect for my fellow fossilized academics makes me wind up exiled to some shack in Montana ( )... what could I do, photographically?

The answer at which I arrived is leaf prints and cyanos and such. Those are things that anybody can completely own. But that's about it. Pretty astounding when you think about how most of us rely on others for materials and recipes etc. It's very hard to be completely self-reliant in photography. I can do it, from a chemistry standpoint, but then there is the issue of how I spend my time.

One other stray point, I think we all need to show a lot more respect for the amazing work of people who brought us all these wonderful materials and processes. My own research work is very tangentially exposed to that and I have nothing but awe and respect for people who make it so easy for us to, you know, basically point and shoot. (Jack Mitchell, R.I.P. too)

Blast again this lack of easy multiquote on APUG. On well, Notepad to the rescue:

MaximusM3 said:

I think we're clumping photojournalism (Bresson) with everything else and that isn't quite fair. Bresson's job was to capture. That's what he did. His printers, as skilled as they were, were assigned the task of delivering an image that was already well composed and timed. At times it may have been not properly exposed, but content and moments was what mattered and that's what Bresson delivered. He was not interested in printing and he probably didn't have the time, or even the skills, but that doesn't diminish his accomplishments one little bit. Others decide to have full control for various reasons: ego, skills, time available, type of photography and mostly because they enjoy the process. I, personally, print my own negatives because I truly enjoy printing and, if I didn't, I'd simply be shooting digital and let an inkjet spit it out. As always, everyone's mileage may vary.

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This is pretty much my position too. I saw the Bresson exhibit at the High in Atlanta. Much of it was very impressive, but not so much for the print quality. OTOH, while I appreciate and enjoy viewing such work, I really don't have any desire to do that kind of thing. It isn't "me" or what I seek to express. Further, I too thoroughly enjoy the process of analog photography and especially the darkroom. While I like shooting film I honestly enjoy printing more. If I didn't enjoy that process I'd just shoot digital - if I shot at all.

cliveh said:

When a post discusses HCB, lets just remind ourselves in visual terms what we are talking about -

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Guss25YP-...AAMPo/EL9OkTUmKbI/s1600/Cartier-Bresson00.jpg

Can any memember of APUG produce a picture like this?

Click to expand...

Can't say I could, but then again I don't have any real desire to do so. This image isn't that impressive to me. It's good, don't get me wrong, a little well-seen moment out of time, but it doesn't have much emotional appeal to me.

I have my 2011 (13 month) Ansel Adams wall calendar hanging above my computer desk as I type this. The January 2012 image is "Road and fog, Del Monte Forest, Pebble Beach California, 1964." The only image of it I could find online looks like someone has digitally "toned" it to the detriment of this image so I won't post the link. Still, for me it has a lot more appeal than the above HCB image. I grew up in a rural environment. That image speaks of wonder and mystery in nature to me. You don't have to agree, of course.

keithwms said:

Well, believe it or not, quite a few people won't find as much value in an image like that as perhaps you or I would. I of course would love to have it on my wall!

I think some people strive for "timeless", people-less, emotionally abstract images- Ansel wannabes, for lack of a better term. This is in stark contrast to these sorts of HCB images that have an obvious and often confrontational sense of place and time.

Some people like one thing; some people like another. And the Earth keeps spinning on axis.

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Most of Adam's images may be timeless and people-less, but they are far from emotionally abstract, at least to me.

I wonder if there is some correlation with preference for "Adams-esque" versus "HCB style" photos with rural versus urban experience and preference? In any case, I'm certainly not an "Adams wannabe" as pretentious as that would be, I'm a "Roger wannabe" who happens to find the work of Adams, Weston, and more recently Sexton and Barnbaum and such quite inspiring. I don't seek to emulate it, but it often does convey a timeless beauty to me.

HCB's photos are at their best when they capture social conditions (his Moscow series, both of them) and big worldly events, or else little slices out of normal time like the image above or the puddle jumper or Mario's Bike. Nothing wrong with that, but it's nothing I'm worth a damn at most of the time nor something I aspire to.

ParkerSmithPhoto said:

The High Museum recently had an Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit "The Modern Century" which was put together by MOMA. The photographs show great imagination, but honestly, most of the prints were totally mediocre. The best ones were from the end of his life where he worked closely with a master printer. These are all signed big, with ink, and embossed, as well. (You can see this in the documentary available on Netflix.)

Keith Carter is a very fine print maker who has always printed his own work, as well as an insanely great photographer. Roger Ballen is an amazing photographer who hasn't printed his own work in nearly 25 years, but he's worked with the same printer for all those years and they obviously have a good thing going. Michael Kenna uses assistants to help print.

Lee Friedlander printed his own work for years, but his most recent work, some of the best of his very long life, is printed by someone else. Irving Penn's work was largely printed by others, as was Avedon's. These guys were so busy making photographs that the printing had to be done by someone else or it would never get done at all. Does anyone care who printed Avedon's work? No, it's AVEDON.

There are plenty of "print makers" who can process their film to a tenth of a stop and make gorgeous prints of nothing worth looking at. Many people get caught up in the "process" and never get the "why" and the "what." They simply see that Weston was at Big Sur and the photos were awesome so it must have been Pyro and Amidol and Big Sur, NOT Weston.

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I agree about the prints at the MOMA/High exhibit. They varied from frankly almost poor (my modern judgment of some of the early ones printed in the style then popular so not entirely fair) through mediocre to pretty good, and for the most part improved over time, but I don't recall any that were particularly striking as prints. The images, well some were superb to me and some "meh" as one would expect with such a large collection of anyone's images. Tastes always vary.

Why do photography? For me it's partly expressive, "here's something I saw and stopped long enough to notice, take a look through my eyes if you'd like" and, frankly, also largely about the process. Not whether it's done to 1/10th stop accuracy but rather that I simply enjoy the process. I like taking a fairly complex, rather scientific (but thank goodness not, for me, digital - I'm a network engineer and the last thing I want to do for art is to sit down in front of a computer again) process and using it to share what I saw.

I totally agree that the work of Weston would not be Weston if someone else were just at Big Sur using a large format camera developing in Pyro and printing with Amidol. But on the other hand, those were the tools Weston chose, so in that sense they are a part of how he expressed himself. I don't think they would have been the same images had he had available and used digital processes. Not that they'd necessarily be worse, just different. Unlike Weston we do have a choice. So use what you prefer, whether it's because of the results or because we enjoy the process.

I come back to Adam's score/performance analogy. Some musicians are composers and not very good at or maybe interested in performing, and many (more) performers are good performers but not composers. A musician can be either alone or both, as suits their ability and interests, but they are still musicians. So HCB, Avedon etc. certainly were photographers as were Adams, Weston etc. (I don't think anyone here dispute that, of course.) Neither approach is better; it depends on what you want to do, both what you want to express (the result) and the process you prefer.

For me, again, I love darkroom work, probably more than shooting film. Not everyone will feel the same way, and that's fine.

Roger Cole said:

Most of Adam's images may be timeless and people-less, but they are far from emotionally abstract, at least to me.

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That's very interesting Roger, and I'm glad you wrote that. Would you be willing to try to put into words what sorts of emotions a particular Adams photograph conveys to you? Maybe in another thread. It'd be a very interesting thing to discuss. For me, the most successful Adams photographs are the ones that are the lest emotionally abstract, as I described it. For example, Moonrise is one of very few that has some deliberate trace of humanity and some implied statement about it. (and I suppose that it is also his most successful image, strictly from a sales point)

Actually, I've thought that some regular discussion of the "classic" film images is long overdue...

Adams' musical analogy is something that tells us more about him than we might realize. He was actually a quite good musician. But he was not much of a composer. That's not meant to be a poke at him, but I do wonder why people feel the need to use these analogies at all, when they are so full of holes. I seriously doubt that Adams would want to have that quote pulled out as often as it is, he knew very well that it's a coarse analogy at best.

keithwms said:

That's very interesting Roger, and I'm glad you wrote that. Would you be willing to try to put into words what sorts of emotions a particular Adams photograph conveys to you? Maybe in another thread. It'd be a very interesting thing to discuss. For me, the most successful Adams photographs are the ones that are the lest emotionally abstract, as I described it. For example, Moonrise is one of very few that has some deliberate trace of humanity and some implied statement about it. (and I suppose that it is also his most successful image, strictly from a sales point)

Actually, I've thought that some regular discussion of the "classic" film images is long overdue...

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Maybe I misunderstood "emotionally abstract." I think I took that to mean "emotionally void" or "dull" and those aren't the same things.

But yeah, I could probably write about that, given time (which I don't have now, we are getting ready to head to the High to see "Picasso to Warhol.")

The one I'm looking at on my calendar expresses timeless calm and quiet mornings to me. I've been in the TN mountains where I grew up on days that looked much like that, with allowances for the different trees. Far from "Wagnerian" as some people have called some AA photos, this one is meditative to me.

ostgardlaw said:

In thinking about master printers, I've sometimes thought of the negative as analogous to a script produced by a playwright, who turns it over to directors and actors for their own interpretations of the work, usually without consulting the author. Even though I very much enjoy the entire process which results in a silver gelatin print, I would love to produce a negative worthy of a master printer's interpretation someday.

Click to expand...

That notion of a neg being a script, or a score is great chatter for cocktail hour but that's about it as far as I'm concerned. There is some truth to it of course, but the reality might be more that some photographers view the art as "the whole process"... and some feel that the whole process must be done by the exact same individual whereas others feel that some parts of the process can be done by others "to the artists specifications". Few, I'm assuming, outside of a news reporting environment would take the attitude of "I capture; You do whatever you want with it". That happens in the news world where the shooter turned over teh exposed film and might not ever see it again, but probably not in the art world. I've often wondered in the fashion world who really takes credit for being the "artist" when it is a team collaboration of AD (artist), photographer (artist), photoshop artist, layout artist, makeup artist, model (artist), and customer (proably not really an artist but I bet they think they are).

Re: the term "Master Printer"... I know there are such people and they are to be highly respected, but I doubt if they often have full authority to re-interpret however they want. I know the printer I worked with (I would not consider myself "great" not him a "master", but we worked well together) would print to my direction and often also deliver another interpretation. I always felt bad for him when I'd look at both and frown... but that was the opportunity for both of us to re-magine where the image could go. For me it was humbling; for him it was a combination of insulting and humbling. I really relate to what Matt King said in his last post. That is what I have experienced but I'm the guy who likes shooting and knows what the final product "should" look like... but dislike the darkroom aspects of the process. The relationship I had with my printer was a relationship of trust, comon vision, and respect. How that relationship happened, IDK but when it did we both knew that we were having fun together. Unfortunately he is gone and I'm still here. I do little printing anymore because of that. When time permits I hope to be able to take all of my darkroom equipment out of storage and see if I can learn to like that part of the process.

Oh how I wish I had read this before typing my last post. Had that been the case I'd simply say, "me too... except I never had the pleasure of meeting Per V, nor have I yet seriously moved toward serious digital experimentation (at least since my adolescent days.)

keithwms said:

Speaking for myself of course... my lack of printmaking at present has nothing to do with lack of interest in getting [analogue] prints done, eventually.

I simply don't have time to do darkroom stuff. It's certainly not lack of ability or funds or equipment. I can do silver, Pt/Pd, lith, cyano, and have experience with splitgrade etc. and some lovely bleaching tricks that Per V. taught me... R.I.P. Per! I have three enlargers, a bunch of enlarger lenses, access to two darkrooms plus my own spare bathroom which is now full of pyro concoctions... and enough film and paper to sink a battleship.... and two full-time jobs. I also write a lot, so I simply don't have time to fuss over prints. So it is by choice that I don't spend a lot of time in the darkroom.

And I also do a lot of chromes and instant film, still. I consider those to be finished work, at least in the analogue sense.

Plus I do a fair amount of experimental digital and hybrid as well; I have two rather high end digicams and such. I just don't enjoy the digital process for b&w at all. The only part of b&w that I feel I must do with digital now is IR movie project I am working on; alas, without rolls and rolls of HIE it's just the way it has to be.

So, long story short, the printmaking phase is something I can easily put off. I might spend the majority of my time on that eventually, who knows. But for now, having the ideas in my head is more important than getting them on paper.

If I counted the total number of projects going right now, I guess it's a dozen or so. So there's simply not enough time in the day to worry about prints. To put it another way, I have too much respect for prints to half ass them.

Click to expand...

Roger Cole said:

Maybe I misunderstood "emotionally abstract." I think I took that to mean "emotionally void" or "dull" and those aren't the same things.

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Oh okay. Well to me 'emotionally abstract' doesn't mean devoid of emotion. I don't doubt for one instant that Adams put emotion into his images, so many of which are just spectacularly effective (so they must connect at an emotional level).

I suspect that if we put a more journalistic HCB image up and ask for words, we'd get a fair amount of agreement. If there were a way to do that in a blind submission, so nobody sees what everyone else is going to say, I bet we'd get a lot of the same words. With Adams, I am really curious what we'd get. I find it very hard to say what I see in most of the Adams' prints. For me, a lot of E. Weston is much easier to talk about.

Do architects get credit even though they didn't lay the brick? Who beside Frank Lloyd Wright do you think about in association with the Guggenheim Museum? Isn't it about having a vision and executing the results?

Alan Klein said:

Who beside Frank Lloyd Wright do you think about in association with the Guggenheim Museum? Isn't it about having a vision and executing the results?

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Soloman Guggenheim.

i think people who are interested always know who the printer of a photograph is. some printers are well known
and some are lesser known, but just the same people who do are known for doing.

One of the aspects I noticed reading through this thread is the fact that print/process orientated photographers speak of putting their own emotional interpretation into the finished print. So perhaps one of the main differences here is that HCB is showing us the emotion of the moment/subject and not of the photographer. A selfless Zen approach.

cliveh said:

One of the aspects I noticed reading through this thread is the fact that print/process orientated photographers speak of putting their own emotional interpretation into the finished print. So perhaps one of the main differences here is that HCB is showing us the emotion of the moment/subject and not of the photographer. A selfless Zen approach.

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I think that purposful, considered, camera work normally shows us what the photographer wants us to see.

As photographers we pick what the world gets to see, we are in full control of the context, or lack thereof, that we choose to show the world.

I fully believe that HCB had a very clear idea of what, in an artistic sense, he wanted to "draw", what he wanted us to see. I also belive that this was a business decision, not Zen; when he photographed (made an instant drawing of) the places and the people that were his subjects he was looking for the decisive iconic moments/scenes that would evoke enough emotion in viewers that they would want to buy the prints.

BrianShaw said:

That notion of a neg being a script, or a score is great chatter for cocktail hour but that's about it as far as I'm concerned. There is some truth to it of course, but the reality might be more that some photographers view the art as "the whole process"... and some feel that the whole process must be done by the exact same individual whereas others feel that some parts of the process can be done by others "to the artists specifications". Few, I'm assuming, outside of a news reporting environment would take the attitude of "I capture; You do whatever you want with it".

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I was thinking about a piece I saw in some photography magazine years ago in which the same negative, a landscape I think, was given to several veteran printers and each then explained how he would interpret the image in a final print. The four results were quite distinct. While I agree few of us would be willing to turn over our negatives the way the writer turns over a script, still I wonder what another printer, backed up with more experience and skill than I have, or just a different artistic sensibility, might produce with one of my negatives which may be a better interpretation than the one I had in mind. And of course there is never just one way to interpret a negative. Lillian Bassman, the great fashion photographer, has radically re-interpreted a lot of negatives she made in the prime of her career (I think she is still alive). And ultimately we have no choice but to give up control of our negatives so someone else might find them and make art with them. I'm thinking of Vivian Maier, and the negatives of Capa, Taro, and Chim hidden for so many years in the Mexican Suitcase.

Dan Henderson said:

Matt: I am interested in why you think that "nothing will improve your printing as much as printing for others." I am not taking issue with your statement in any way, but I have never printed for anyone else and I would like to know how you think it has improved your printing.
Thanks,
Dan

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Dan:

It helps in a number of different ways.

First, there is the obvious advantage of volume. If you are printing for others, you are probably printing a lot, so you gain more experience.

Second, it forces you to verbalize your thoughts about the process, and enter into discussions about the options. Having to make your thoughts/vision clear and communicable tends to improve those thoughts/that vision.

Third, approaching a negative without the preconceptions built up at the time it was exposed tends to make it easier to consider and maybe implement a lot of options, and you avoid being disappointed by the negative not turning out the way you "thought" it was going to.

Fourth, the original photographer is available to supply at least one other set of ideas about how best to realize the potential of each negative.

Fifth, the original photographer is available to supply an informed critique of your work; and

Sixth, if you are doing it for money, someone else is paying for your darkroom materials .

Not necessarily in any particular order.

In general, I guess I'm saying that printing tends to improve when it is part of some sort of collaboration, rather than a strictly solitary process.

The only "Truth" in this is that there is No Universal truth to be found. It might have been better as a poll question. Who does and who doesn't consider making the print to be part of their art.

I have wondered to myself if you can conclude that a 35mm photographer generally doesn't put great emphasis on printing.

I saw a major HCB show 20 years ago and found all the 11x14 neutral toned prints to be run of the mill uninspired prints. Just good commercial prints. They said at the show that HCB didn't print his own.

The art in printing is different from the art of walking the streets, seeing and framing.

An interesting thing is that I do both. I print my own and I print for other artists. It is a completely different mind set. For myself I keep an open mind and am interested in unusual prints. For others I need to keep the cost down so I can make some money and my goal is to make a print the photographer won't be able to refuse on grounds of bad printing.

Regarding Penn, people saying he didn't do his own. He was very hands on involved in making the prints that were important to him. Take a look at his book "A Notebook at Random."
Dennis

dpurdy said:

...The art in printing is different from the art of walking the streets, seeing and framing...

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Thanks for that comment -- printing is not a mindless mechanical task for me.

ostgardlaw said:

I was thinking about a piece I saw in some photography magazine years ago in which the same negative, a landscape I think, was given to several veteran printers and each then explained how he would interpret the image in a final print. The four results were quite distinct. While I agree few of us would be willing to turn over our negatives the way the writer turns over a script, still I wonder what another printer, backed up with more experience and skill than I have, or just a different artistic sensibility, might produce with one of my negatives which may be a better interpretation than the one I had in mind. And of course there is never just one way to interpret a negative. Lillian Bassman, the great fashion photographer, has radically re-interpreted a lot of negatives she made in the prime of her career (I think she is still alive). And ultimately we have no choice but to give up control of our negatives so someone else might find them and make art with them. I'm thinking of Vivian Maier, and the negatives of Capa, Taro, and Chim hidden for so many years in the Mexican Suitcase.

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All very true. I've only had two people print my "important images". One did exactly what I asked. His prints were OK. Sometimes only good enough. But it was my limited vision since he only did what I asked. The second guy (RIP) did what I asked and always suggested alternatives. Those prints were always better after collaborating with him. A third printer may be just as good but different... who knows.

Speaking of Bassman... a long time ago I saw an exhibit of St. Ansel's images and that was the point of the exhibit: how he reinterpreted over the years. FASCINATING! I imagine a lot of the reinterpretation had someting to do with who was printing for him at the time, but that wasn't specifically addressed.

baachitraka said:

Henri Cartier-Bresson

He disliked developing or making his own prints. He said: "I've never been interested in the process of photography, never, never. Right from the beginning. For me, photography with a small camera like the Leica is an instant drawing." -Wikipedia.

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If he were the only photographer to feel it... Duane Michals has also the same feeling. Does it make him a non-photographer? No unless you have a very restrictive definition of photography (in this case, I would consider Duane Michals as a uber-photographer).

This very interesting question sent me back to the books yesterday. I just told someone, yesterday also, that basically I've been heavily influenced by HCB and W Eugene Smith. Looking through books, I realized my work is a little like HCB printed by WES. I found the HCB prints very disappointing; mundane, even. Smith, extreme in the other direction. Somewhere in the middle strike me as a good spot to be.