Posting work

[Nige]

agree with your comments regarding FotoWillem's site. Well worth a browse!

I don't think it matters what format you shoot in, screen representation rarely do them justice. Sometimes, examining the small details of a print is part of the appreciation of that print. There are some exceptions I guess, but never having seen those images as prints, how can we tell? I can only go by my own experience and generally, my prints are far superior to my web versions (and I don't shoot LF). I've seen discussions debating the differences between transmittance and reflective lighting and I'd agree that has a lot to do with it.

In the attached pic, on the actual 8"x10" you can count the barbs on the barbwire fences, but that just doesn't get translated in a pic thats 600odd pixels wide. For some pics that sort of thing doesn't matter.

Picking up on another of your points, I no longer worry too much about the outright quality of the image shown, giving the maker the benefit of the doubt to the digitising process and try to concentrate on the image, however if there's distinct observations I can make and think they will benefit from I will add those. Half the time it a screen setup thing anyway!

 

[Jorge]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (jdef @ Oct 3 2002, 11:28 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Hello Nige. I didn't mean to infer that LF photographers' images are the only ones that suffer in the translation to electronic media. The reason I singled out LF photographers relates to the seeming disparity in their posting work compared to other photographers. Since recently committing my efforts to LF, I am eager to see the work of other LF photog's that I know through reading their posts in various forums etc., but have been disappointed time and again by how few post their work. I've learned a lot from reading the posted comments, but feel that without images to form a context I am often at a loss to interpret them. Thank you for posting your image with your comment, it is a perfect example of the best possible kind of response.-jdf</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Another thing you might consider is the utter ignorance some of us LF photographers have making scans for posting on the net. I tried it a few times and it was a very unpleasant experience. Why spend so much time, effort and money to make a beautiful print just to have it look like crap on a monitor? Or spend time an money working on it with PS to approximate how your print looks? to me they are worthless pursuits, but some people do make some very nice scans of their prints. If you wish to see some LF format work, go to Tuan's site ( the link is on our home page) and scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will find a "photographers links" section.....get on this and look the work of Clyde Butcher....wonderful Florida swamp images, etc.....but of course the scans never compare to his real images.....any ways, there is a whole bunch of sites on Tuan's page...
Just dont spend so much time there you forget about us...

 

[Jorge]

BTW I moved this post to the ethics and philosophy sections because we would like to have the feedback and discussion sections for opinions and suggestions related to the APUG site.
This is a very interested thread but I felt it dealt more with the "why" we post (or not) pictures in the net.

 

[Jorge]

jdef, you want to see work from people on this forum? then why dont you start a print exchange? Is very simple, you decide how much work you want to put into this, let say once every 3 months. You give your address to those who want to participate and they will send you prints. You in turn are in charge to distrinbute the prints to the various members who want to participate. Of course everybody who agrees to participate will have to include a couple of bucks for postage with the print. But I guess you get my drift.
Or you can make a list and have a database and with all those who want to participate address, and every so often you e mail each other and exchange prints. Etc, etc. I has been done many times in other forums.

Another avenue if you want to meet with people is to create "free" workshops. Pick a place and decide to go there. Anounce it here and see how many people show. Per Volquarts has done this in the photo.net LF forum and last I heard he had 40 people on his last "free" workshop. Of course, Per is a wonderful photographer, so there is an incentive there. But maybe you have someone in your area who would be interested to meet other LF photographers.

 

[Jorge]

jdef, just e mail Sean or PM him and ask him if he could set up a print exchange forum. I am sure he will agree to do it. Once the forum is set up ask for members to exchange prints. You will have to organize a little bit, but it might be worth the effort. Set up a data base in excel, or something like that and get the mailing addreses of all the people who want to participate. set them up in order and just figure out a way so that the people participating do not mail prints to the same person all the time.
Like I said since you will be starting this so you will have to coordinate who the members mail their prints to.
You need no computer skills other than just a little knowledge of excel or some kind of spread sheet program to help you keep track of the members participating.

 

[Nige]

I have participated in a couple print exchanges... I even set up a webpage for it (http://unite.com.au/~u3819a/printswap/printswap.html). I will swap other images not on that page if I know I can print them (those ones I do know I can print!)

Also, the 'rules' I have on that page are all negotiable! My most recent exchange hasn't been completed, even though I sent my prints a long time ago..... oh well!

 

[Jorge]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (jdef @ Oct 8 2002, 09:58 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>If I didn't screw this up, this should be a link to a gallery of my work-jdf
http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=235142</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
You did not screwed it up and the work is very nice, congratulations!

 

[Sean]

Hi All,

We're looking into creating a member's gallery. As part of that feature, we'll include details of a 'print exchange'. How does this idea sound?

jdef, you'd be the point of contact for the print exchange.

Sean

 

[Nige]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (jdef @ Oct 8 2002, 06:51 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>.... I hope that your decision not to offer portraits isn't reciprocal, as I have little else to offer. I'm beginning to get a sense of what a minority we portraitists are....
</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
No, I'm, game to swap anything, and I have my eye on a couple of your images from the linked folder! My comment "Since I doubt you would want a picture of my son, regardless how cute he is, I've just included scenics!" was an attempt at humour

and probably my expectation that no-one would want a picture of him (or them as it is now!) I will have to change that page because I think I'd even remove the reference to inkjets too. I think I can print (too some level of satisfaction) most things on my 'gallery' page ( http://unite.com.au/~u3819a/gallery/gallery.html ) as well. I put that disclaimer in because some pics are scanned before they get printed, and in my experience the two methods may not produce the same result and I don't want to present a false expectation.

 

[Jorge]

Hey, Sally Mann did pretty good with the portraits of her children! so dont think is impossible.....

 

[Sean]

Once we get up and running at the new webhost, I'll be installing a photo gallery application. It will probably be similar to photo.net and some of the other major sites. I'm just going through the various ones to make sure we pick the best one. One thing we'll stress is for people to include as much technical information as possible. I don't want us to have just another gallery, I want it to be a good resource for technique. I also don't want each person posting 50-100 images in their portfolios because the bandwith might be too much, so I think we should focus on a member gallery system that showcases 10 or so of each members best work -with technical details. What do you guys think? Thanks! Sean

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Jay: I once asked Steve Grimes about the possibility of finding a Studio shutter for my big 360/4.5 Heliar, and he didn't recommend it, suggesting that they were usually in bad shape and not worth repairing, and it was better to go with a Packard Shutter or give up a half stop and adapt it to an Ilex#5. You should ask him directly, but note that he doesn't say anything about repairing Studio shutters on his website. A conventionally mounted Packard wouldn't have worked for me, because my camera has a tapered bellows, and the lensboards are too small for a shutter that would have had a big enough aperture for the lens, and a front-mounted Packard would have shifted the weight too far forward. Eventually I was lucky enough to find a lightweight, front mount iris-type shutter that fits on the front of the lens with three set-screws and is operated with an air bulb. Like a Packard, it has three settings--open, bulb, and "I" (about 1/15 sec.). Eventually I should add flash sync to it, but meanwhile I can just dim the room lights, open the shutter, and fire the flash separately, and results are usually pretty good. In your situation, I would probably get a Packard with sync for the Verito.

As to the general question--I do think people who are active online in a photography forum should post work somewhere. I have a website at:

http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/photo/

At the same time, I agree that digital presentation is generally unsatisfying to me, and I'd rather be printing than scanning and manipulating images in Photoshop. The print exchange sounds interesting, or maybe some sort of circulating portfolio, where participants could form a kind of circle, each contributing a print to the portfolio, mailing it from one participant to the next, and then when it comes back to you, take out your previous print and put in a new one.

 

[Jorge]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (jdef @ Oct 9 2002, 02:25 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>. Jorge, I hope that you don't feel that you couldn't participate in an exchange because you don't have work posted. I didn't originally consider posting, but simply sending a print and hoping for one in return. In some ways I still prefer that arrangement. It's less like shopping and more like a conversation. It lends an air of anticipation, and draws continuities in the work exchanged. Although I've not seen your work, I feel that I know enough about you from your posts to send only my best work, and hope that it doesn't compare too unfavorably to yours.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Not at all jdef!, to put it simply since I just moved to Mexico I only have stuff that is mounted and matted. I am working on some new images from Mexico. As soon as I have something I like I will be participating in the exchange.
As to the work, I like your prints, and from my inital experience from scanning I am sure the originals are much better than the posted images.

Sean, I think the gallerie with a max of 10 images is a great idea. I will force us to choose the best rather than just posting for the heck of it.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Well, if it's really close to being functional, maybe it's just a matter of having it cleaned and lubricated. It might even be the sort of thing you can do yourself, if you're mechanically inclined. Simple one-speed shutters are usually not so complicated.

 

[bmac]

For those of you interested in the print echhange, you probably ought to check out the following thread in the off topic discussions section. APUG REVOLVING PORTFOLIO

Brian