Latest lenswork Web AudioBlog

[mark]

I do find it meditative to bring down a 12 pound sledge hammer on my inkjet printer, and watch the tiny bits of worthless plastic shower down around me in a fascinating display...

 

[John McCallum]

My problem with Lenswork.

Perhaps some of us traditional people get a little highspirited when given the opportunity to beat the digital wolf from the door, Brooks.

My problem with Lenswork is that it never seems to arrive fast enough.



(er perhaps I might clarify; that wasn't a dig about the last issue.)

 

[roteague]

Perhaps some of us traditional people get a little highspirited when given the opportunity to beat the digital wolf from the door, Brooks.

I can't complain about the quality of LensWork, although it is late getting here as well.

FWIW, I just wrote an email to the editor of "Outdoor Photography" asking if they are ever going to bother writing about the new Nikon F6 or if they are going to continue ignoring it. It will be interesting to see if I get a response. Note: I see the upcoming issue of this digital rag will have an article on Ansel Adams.

 

[kwmullet]

Golly, I had no idea my blog would bring forth such interesting comments! I am flattered that you are all listening. I should, though, probably clarify my comments about the "half an hour" of darkroom work.[...]

Hey Brooks, et al.,

One of the reasons I got out of IT was the disconnectedness of being in front of a computer all the time. It lacked for more substantive human contact, even if much of the time on the computer was spent in various forms of correspondence with other humans. One of the great things about APUG and lenswork are the things that go a long way toward devirtualization of the forum. With APUG, it's print and postcard exchanges, chat rooms and localized meetups to engage in real-world exchanges with the folks on the other side of the computer screen and keyboard.

Your asynchronous audio blogs have had a similar effect on how I regard lenswork. I hope you remain a physical magazine and never sacrifice the physical presence for the virtual one, as at least one other magazine does by putting special "subscriber only" parts of the magazine on their website.

Regarding connundrum of what to call expressive image time at the computer, I've heard it called "post-production", but that doesn't really fit, does it? It's not as if all the "production" in an expressive image stops at the moment when the shutter snaps closed. Hopefully, you're still producing right up until the time when your print (transparency, photoemulsion-covered coffee mug, whatever) finds its home. I would shy away from saying that wet darkroom time is "real" photographic printing and computer output isn't. For years and years, I've heard snobs from one discipline or another claim "School isn't real, just wait until you get to the real world", "The Navy isn't real -- wait until you get to the real world" or "working in academia isn't real...". You get the idea. I've long since concluded that everything is as real as everything else.

Photography is, after all, an expressive conveyance of a given point of view through technochemical means. It's all an analog to something else. I'm not about to promote changing the site name, but even electronic photographic images are an analog to something. The world is neither black and white, grainular or two-dimensional. Hell, it doesn't even really have colors.

I personally don't like digital capture much anymore, so I prefer "quiet" or "simpler" photography or "wet" printing to electronic capture or computer printing. In my opinion, though, it's all "real".

Maybe, in the end, "darkroom time" isn't such a miss after all. When expressing yourself through an image, we all spend time in the dark, quiet room behind our own eyes.

-KwM-


​

 

[roteague]

of "Outdoor Photography"

Should be "Outdoor Photographer". Sorry. The other is a UK magazine, of much higher quality, IMO.