Salgado Statement on using D-76 - what do you make of this?

cliveh said:

I've met Salgado and I think he is talking crap to hype up his MO of film images.

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There’s no denying that he puts into grays… what you put into composition. Oh he’s no slouch at composition either but I prefer your faithfulness to the decisive moment. His images feel staged in comparison.

Bill, you are too kind. Flattery will get you everywhere.

From Genisis on Salgado has been using a digital camera and his lab are making 4 x 5 LVT negatives that is then put in Enlarger, He has used the two printers in France forever. Not sure what he is doing now.
His early work from film exposed on his Leica and printed traditionally has always impresse me more than the digital to LVT even though the same printers are involved. He converted very early to digital when the
files were inferior to what you photographers are using today.

Carnie Bob said:

From Genisis on Salgado has been using a digital camera and his lab are making 4 x 5 LVT negatives that is then put in Enlarger, He has used the two printers in France forever. Not sure what he is doing now.
His early work from film exposed on his Leica and printed traditionally has always impresse me more than the digital to LVT even though the same printers are involved. He converted very early to digital when the
files were inferior to what you photographers are using today.

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In 2018 there was a show of mountain landscapes at the local Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies featuring photos by Bradford Washburn & Sebastiao Salgado (quite the odd couple contrast IMO).
The Washburn photos were on loan from Parks Canada in Whitehorse, all older silver gelatin prints from 5x7" negatives. The Salgado photos were all digital prints. The contrast could not have been more startling.....in no way did the Salgado prints stand up to those by Washburn.

GregY said:

In 2018 there was a show of mountain landscapes at the local Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies featuring photos by Bradford Washburn & Sebastiao Salgado (quite the odd couple contrast IMO).
The Washburn photos were on loan from Parks Canada in Whitehorse, all older silver gelatin prints from 5x7" negatives. The Salgado photos were all digital prints. The contrast could not have been more startling.....in no way did the Salgado prints stand up to those by Washburn.

Encounters with the Sublime: Bradford Washburn & Sebastião Salgado

Bradford Washburn and Sebastião Salgado's photographs feature the Kluane National Park and Reserve, Wrangell-St. Elias, Glacier Bay and Tatshenshini-Alsek, parks the largest internationally protected area in the world.

www.gallerieswest.ca

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That probably said more about the person doing the printing rather than the potential of the process.

This guy makes nice digitally derived prints, and has the LF Pt/Pd pedigree to make an informed choice:

MurrayMinchin said:

That probably said more about the person doing the printing rather than the potential of the process.

This guy makes nice digitally derived prints, and has the LF Pt/Pd pedigree to make an informed choice:

Italy Through Another Lens | Photographic Book | Dick Arentz | Platinum and Palladium Printing

Dick Arentz spent 35 years exposing film through the bellows of large format view cameras. Now with Italy Through Another Lens he has moved to the 21st century, using the latest technology. He presents a series of images of an Italy not generally seen by Italians or visitors, and which, framed...

www.dickarentz.com

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I'm familiar with Dick Arentz & his work. These Salgado prints weren't platinum and i had seen some of his earlier work in exhibitions. The images themselves didn't stand out either.... there was a stark contrast. It really was an 'odd couple' of an exhibition. It would have stood out to anyone with more than a passing interest in photography or mountains.

GregY said:

I'm familiar with Dick Arentz & his work. These Salgado prints weren't platinum and i had seen some of his earlier work in exhibitions. The images themselves didn't stand out either.... there was a stark contrast. It really was an 'odd couple' of an exhibition.

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I know they weren't platinum, but the point I was making to make was that it was the printer, not the process.

When I was getting into pin registered masks while enlarging, I read a conversation between two people who completely disregarded the process because of some prints they had seen where the person doing the printing had gone too far and left obvious masking artifacts in the prints. That would be like refusing to dodge & burn because of seeing a lousy example of a sky burn.

I read your comment as an overall digital diss rather than a comment about one exhibition...my apologies if I got that wrong.

MurrayMinchin said:

I know they weren't platinum, but the point I was making to make was that it was the printer, not the process.

When I was getting into pin registered masks while enlarging, I read a conversation between two people who completely disregarded the process because of some prints they had seen where the person doing the printing had gone too far and left obvious masking artifacts in the prints. That would be like refusing to dodge & burn because of seeing a lousy example of a sky burn.

I read your comment as an overall digital diss rather than a comment about one exhibition...my apologies if I got that wrong.

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It was not a flat out digital diss. I've seen good digital prints alongside good silver gelatin prints. William Clifts exhibit in Santa Fe on Shiprock & Mont St Michel is an example. And I'm not talking about looking at prints in a book either. When you go to an exhibition and see prints you get an impression. There was a difference both in the kind of prints and the images as well. Washburn spent his life in the mountains and doing aerial photography. Salgado does one trip to the Yukon and here's an exhibition. One photographer has incredible depth and the other has a passing glance at a subject. I'm sure Salgado used his normal expert printers for the exhibition. You can argue in discussion all you will, but unless you saw the exhibition it's merely your philosophical opinion. How many exhibitions of Salgado's work have there been in Canada? What I hear you saying is someone could have made better digital prints with the subtext that they would have stood up to Washburns silver gelatin images. Well maybe, but that's not what was exhibited.

GregY...speaking of entrenched biases and the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies...

I worked as a small town newspaper darkroom technician for a while and used the first generation of RC multigrade papers. The stuff was horrid. I was a firm double weight glossy fibre base Oriental Seagull, Ilford Galerie, or Zone VI Brilliant graded paper kind of guy.

Sometime in the 1990's we were on a road trip to Calgary and I noticed some B&W photography greeting cards in the MEC store. They were beautiful. Waaaay better reproduction printing than I'd seen in any Ansel Adams book. They were by Craig Richards, who I found out was the curator of the WMCR.

On the way back to BC we stopped in at the museum and I asked if he was in that day. The receptionist said he wasn't, then listened to a string of questions I had about his work. She then went into the back for a minute and came back with Craig in tow.

When he told me he printed on Ilford Multigrade FB it nearly blew the back of my head off. Couldn't believe it. Rocked my world. Changed the course of my printing.


Note to self: eyes wide open, head on a swivel, heed the signs.

GregY said:

It was not a flat out digital diss. I've seen good digital prints alongside good silver gelatin prints. William Clifts exhibit in Santa Fe on Shiprock & Mont St Michel is an example. And I'm not talking about looking at prints in a book either. When you go to an exhibition and see prints you get an impression. There was a difference both in the kind of prints and the images as well. Washburn spent his life in the mountains and doing aerial photography. Salgado does one trip to the Yukon and here's an exhibition. One photographer has incredible depth and the other has a passing glance at a subject. I'm sure Salgado used his normal expert printers for the exhibition. You can argue in discussion all you will, but unless you saw the exhibition it's merely your philosophical opinion. How many exhibitions of Salgado's work have there been in Canada? What I hear you saying is someone could have made better digital prints with the subtext that they would have stood up to Washburns silver gelatin images. Well maybe, but that's not what was exhibited.

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Lifetime vs run & gun. Got it