Anchell & Troop - the Soap Opera
With all due respect to the participating members of APUG this has to be one of the most interesting threads I have ever read, jumping back and forth between erudite discussions of Microdol-X, opd, ppd, esoteric film development and then to Bill blasting me for a lubber and a cad, then firing pot-shots at Ian Grant. Whoooeee! For some this is fun. For me, it is the reason you rarely see my presence on forums. I am interested in photography and technique, not egos.
I thought the discussion about the copyright on FDC had ended on page 4 when I “b**ch slapped” Bill (his words). For curiosity sake I decided to check this thread this morning to see if any more had been said and was surprised at the amount of vitriol Bill has been pouring forth.
I am trying hard not to allow Bill to drag me into a tit for tat. However, I feel that it is only fair that I have a chance to rebut and hope Sean will bend the rules just enough to allow me my say.
My release of the copyright to Bill has nothing whatsoever to do with money – it never did and never will. However, Bill thinks in terms of money, law suits, and his standing in the photo community as a paragon of chemistry.
To understand what is going on you must understand Bill’s character. When we were collaborating on the FDC he confided in me that he had never worked on a project with anyone that had not eventually ended in a law suit. He hoped, he said, this would not happen to us. Several years later, in another conversation he confided that he was the defendant in a law suit that had been dragging on for years. He said that he was in the wrong, and would probably loose, but he was going to make the plaintiff pay through the nose to prove it.
So, if anyone from APUG thinks Bill is kidding about forcing me to sue him, he’s not. It’s the kinda guy he is.
Somewhere along the line he has taken a dislike to Ian Grant. He will take any opportunity to malign Ian’s character. I personally believe it is because he views Ian as a threat to his preeminence as a pundit of photographic chemistry.
All that said, go back to page 3 of this thread and read the unedited e-mail he sent me. In a phone conversation prior to that he had threatened to assassinate my character if I did not release the copyright to him, free and clear. He offered me money. He said he was going to hold a fundraiser on APUG and there would be plenty of money for everyone – how much did I want to release my copyright?
I told him money was not the issue. He then wrote on APUG (in this thread, page 4) that I was withholding my permission for more money. It seems that Bill can write anything he wants.
As far as what he says about me and our dealings with Focal it is mostly untrue and that which is partially true he has twisted for his own purposes. Bill was unable to wrest the copyright from Focal and so I stepped in and offered to write the 3rd Edition of the DCB if they would release the copyright to both of us - we were still friends at that time. Since Bill and I had previously received advances for FDC2, as part of the arrangement with Focal I agreed to forgo any advance for DCB3. To my knowledge Bill was allowed to retain the advance he received for FDC2.
Once the copyright was released Bill informed me that I was to have nothing to do with FDC2 other than provide photographs to illustrate his and Ron’s points. If I behaved myself they would include me in the Acknowledgements and photo credits. When I said I wasn’t interested in being placed on the back bench he turned on me in a manner as vicious as you have seen in his posts here against Ian and others. He wanted full ownership of the copyright and I was to be pleased to have my name in the Acknowledgements.
He was so mean-spirited that I basically told him to bugger off. He then informed me that he had been secretly recording every conversation we ever had and intended to use them against me when I sued him for copyright infringement, which he intended. As a result of this threat I am no longer able to communicate directly with Bill on this or any other matter, by phone or e-mail.
I do not believe I need to say more than the above. You may draw your own conclusions as to what sort of person you are dealing with in the form of Bill Troop. As for FDC2 - Bill is free to produce information about film development and publish it however he chooses. He just needs to come up with non-copyrighted material and a new title.
As he said in an earlier post to this thread, he’s done his part on the subject of film developing – he’s relying on Ron will come up with the new material.
And for the record, I never told Bill I was more involved in digital than film – that is pure fabrication on his part. I was out last night, from 5pm until sunset, photographing architecture with my Agfa-Ansco and Efke 25 film developed this afternoon in ABC Pyro, my personal favorite. The day before I was photographing street kids with my Leica M3 and FP4 developed in Pyrocat-HD. I am first and foremost a silver-based photographer. I mentor senior students from South Salem High on darkroom technique. I keep the enlargers aligned every 3 months for Willamette University. I teach a workshop in large format techniques for the Photographers’ Formulary. It is sad that I am forced to re-establish my bona fides every time Bill wants to say “Anchell’s gone digital!”
The forum discussions regarding film, chemistry, and technique which I find on APUG are of great value and, in my opinion, should be made into their own book. Let’s stop the bickering and petty rivalries and get back to our art. Those are fine images posted by RobertV on page 6. Makes me want to go back out again tonight. You will excuse me while I go load some more film.
