At the risk of assuming, something tells me that whatever reason why Simon hasn't been interacting here wasn't Simon's choice. He always seemed cheery and happy to talk to us, honestly.
Ilford? Simon?
The larger question is why isn't Simon interacting here anymore. I haven't heard from him since before the uproar over price increases. Who is the spokesperson for Harman/Ilford or have they gone Kodak on us?
At the risk of assuming, something tells me that whatever reason why Simon hasn't been interacting here wasn't Simon's choice. He always seemed cheery and happy to talk to us, honestly.
Ilford? Simon?
Before we all get in a tizzy lets take a breath. I think it's more about interpretation than anything else. Back in the 50's, 60's and 70's many amateur photographers had darkrooms. Both purpose built and bathroom types. Now we see that most amateur photographers are tooting around digi cams. Hence the rapid demise of darkrooms being used by amateurs.
We on APUG are a minority. We may think we create a big wave but in the grand scheme of things it's more like a ripple.
So to now interpret what was said, the "traditional" enthusiast.
What is that today? It's the digi shooters not us. We are now classified as non-traditioinal as the tradition for the past number of years has been for people to pick up a digi camera rather than a film camera. The traditioinal enthusiast does not use a home darkroom. However the non-traditional film photographers still do.
Naturally if you take a broader view of things then the definition of traditional and non-traditional flips, but that is not the context in which Steven Brierley was asked the question in.
So lets all settle down and just enjoy our uniqueness. Just MHO.
I read the article as well and agree with your assessment. The number of home darkrooms has declined over all. The article over all is not bad, I think. Getting upset over one line is silly. It would be nice to hear from Simon, but there is nothing to get upset about here. I will continue to give Ilford my support.
So Ilford's B&W service is a very good way to introduce new people to using B&W films, and perhaps may lead them into future darkroom use.
Ian
I largely gave up dealing with Jessops when they moved in a different commercial direction towards a different business model (my deciding moment was when I had to instruct a salesman 'up a bit, left a bit, back a bit' to find a roll of HP5 on the shelf), and Calumet supply things for my D&P needs that Jessops don't. I guess they need to make commercial decisions, even though they occasionally seem counter-intuitive to me. However, AP doesn't strike me as a publication that has a "digital good analogue bad" approach ; it's the only periodical I take regularly, and I have it on subscription. This is because, by and large, I trust its editorial judgement, and it gives plenty of space to the likes of Geoffrey Crawley, whose sainted picture should be on every darkroom wall.The main problem is the people who run these publications, and also the likes of Jessops and Calumet, are simply not aware of the interest in and potential of analogue. They take, much of the time, a "Digital good Analogue bad" approach, when of course the market is a lot more complicated than that.
I think it's a rather thoughtless statement. If "the home darkroom of the traditional enthusiast has gone", Ilford must be fast on the road to nowhere itself. There doesn't seem to be a lot of commercial darkrooms around, so where is Ilford's market?
Although not independent, perhaps a 'Harman Quarterly' type publication might be worthwhile to communicate information, although an independent effort could also be interesting, this doesn't seem to exist at the present time.
Tom
Sometimes, you really do have to shoot the messenger, but in this case, the generalised judgement on Amateur Photographer is harsh, and the magazine I read would be unrecognisable from this.It comes as no surprise that Am.Photo. misquoted the actual words. This is exactly as I and others above expected.
Most photographic (and other specialist, but non-professional) magazines recruit "journalists" for their ability to string words together into a coherent sentence: they do not necessarily know very much about the specialist subject they are writing about.
It is not intended to be harsh: it is simply an established fact of the magazine publishing world. Most writers for publications move around different magazines or to different jobs during their career, rarely remaining at one magazine for more than a few years. They are not specialists in the subject matter, though inevitably they acquire some understanding after a time. The editor and a couple of writers on the staff may be specialists but the majority will not be. The magazines primarily rely on freelance contributions for their specialist knowledge.Sometimes, you really do have to shoot the messenger, but in this case, the generalised judgement on Amateur Photographer is harsh, and the magazine I read would be unrecognisable from this.
It is not intended to be harsh: it is simply an established fact of the magazine publishing world. Most writers for publications move around different magazines or to different jobs during their career, rarely remaining at one magazine for more than a few years. They are not specialists in the subject matter, though inevitably they acquire some understanding after a time. The editor and a couple of writers on the staff may be specialists but the majority will not be. The magazines primarily rely on freelance contributions for their specialist knowledge.
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