Why hybrid?

nsurit · Jul 2, 2009

I've soaked myself in kerosene, so you won't need your flame throwers . . . just light a match.

All the images on APUG are digital images expressed in a digital arena. Many don't even print their images, but rather just present a negative scan. Part of what I do in alternative processes requires a digital step (creating a negative from scanned film). I wonder why some digital sharing of images is OK, while others are treated like step children?

It would seem to me that if the folks in alternatives processes used a little truth in advertising, which I think all would do, their work should be no less offensive to the purist than what exists already on this site.

In my opinion, the alt processed folks should not need to go out behind the garage to talk about their work if it involves a scanned and enlarged negative. These folks do have something to share and they have as much in common with APUG ideas and principles as many who currently share their digital images while flying slightly under the radar.

Bill Barber

Sirius Glass · Jul 2, 2009

Anything other than scanning problems to post on APUG goes to the sister site. This is done to prevent the APUG site from being overrun by digital scanning, post processing and printing threads.

Steve

removed account4 · Jul 2, 2009

hi bill

it is probably because it is the way it is.
these things used to be discussed in "the grey area"
.. i remember the good old days too ...

oh well
john

Ken N · Jul 2, 2009

Unfortunately, in the sister site, there is disagreement of what is proper "hybrid". Some say digital camera, analog output, others say analog source, digital output. Frankly, it's all so childish, no matter how you slice it. At least we're not like that other all-digital site out there.

Ian Grant · Jul 3, 2009

It's simple, once discussion of digital imaging is allowed here it would be impossible to police the purely digital posters. Those people have a habit of starting flaming threads arguing that film & traditional darkroom work is dead and that we should all only use Digital.

Personally I'm not anti-Digital, I have to use it for commercial reasons it's not something I discuss, but if I wanted to there's plenty of other Forums, including the Hybrid sister site.

Ian

keithwms · Jul 3, 2009

Bill, I suppose that the established logic goes something like this: APUG promotes analogue and, since complete analogue workflows still exist (particularly when it comes to b&w), a hybrid workflow necessarily displaces an analogue step with a digital step.

In other words: there isn't anything important that the hybrid workflow can do which the analogue workflow cannot. So the worry is that people would spend time talking about the digital steps and less time on how to preserve the analogue techniques. And indeed, a lot of time is spent discussing scanners and such on the sister site.

Having said that... I do not think any artist can allow him/herself to be limited by such thinking. Whatever somebody needs to do to be creative is fine by me. I'd just rather talk about the analogue stuff here, that's all. I do hybrid and purely digital stuff too, but it doesn't bug me in the least that I don't show or talk about that here.

My minor peeve is that some people put drum scanning and LVT in the same category as digital capture or lousy scanning and photoshopping or inkjetting. That is unfortunate, since both drum and LVT continue to be enormously valuable to the analogue photographer and actually predate digital by several decades.

AutumnJazz · Jul 3, 2009

It is too bad that the Hybrid site gets such little traffic. It really should be a subset of APUG, much like the language forums. I don't see French inching into the English forum, do you?

archphoto · Jul 3, 2009

It is weird that on this digital forum digital is a f-word and still photo's are placed here in a digital form.
Hybrid is a part of daily life on APUG, whether we like it or not.

When you look at the Large Format Forum there the scanning/digital section is a part of the forum itself.
This leads to less tension.

Many of us work with both digital and analogue these day's, partly because we are forced to do so by enocomic's, our clients.
Just looking at my own gear: a digital compact, but allso a XA 2, Rollei 35S and a Leica III, a DSLR for my work in Brazil, a SL66, RB67 and Rolleiflex 2.8F, a Sinar P2 4x5/8x10, a Shen Hao 4x5 and plans for a field made from Brazil Wood and yellow copper (in a design phase),
not to forget my 2 full plate tailboard's, both restauration projects.

Both analogue and digital can live in good harmony, even on APUG.
So please let us not be holier than the pope and accept the world we live in.
Shurely, nobody wants the fights whether a Nikon D is better than a Canon D, this is not the platform for it and I hope it never will be.

I am not asking APUG to become a hybrid platform, just a bit of acceptance that many of us use digital in some form or the other.

My 2 cents,
Peter

Andy K · Jul 3, 2009

archphoto said:
It is weird that on this digital forum digital is a f-word and still photo's are placed here in a digital form.
Hybrid is a part of daily life on APUG, whether we like it or not.

When you look at the Large Format Forum there the scanning/digital section is a part of the forum itself.
This leads to less tension.

Many of us work with both digital and analogue these day's, partly because we are forced to do so by enocomic's, our clients.
Just looking at my own gear: a digital compact, but allso a XA 2, Rollei 35S and a Leica III, a DSLR for my work in Brazil, a SL66, RB67 and Rolleiflex 2.8F, a Sinar P2 4x5/8x10, a Shen Hao 4x5 and plans for a field made from Brazil Wood and yellow copper (in a design phase),
not to forget my 2 full plate tailboard's, both restauration projects.

Both analogue and digital can live in good harmony, even on APUG.
So please let us not be holier than the pope and accept the world we live in.
Shurely, nobody wants the fights whether a Nikon D is better than a Canon D, this is not the platform for it and I hope it never will be.

I am not asking APUG to become a hybrid platform, just a bit of acceptance that many of us use digital in some form or the other.

My 2 cents,
Peter

The argument that we use digital scanning to show our work on APUG is a dead horse that has been flogged into a glue pot and back out again. The galleries here are used by members to show a poor digitised representation of real wet darkroom produced prints. Our end product is not a digital file, it is the aforementioned real prints. That is why APUG's print exchanges are so popular. A negative scan is not a finished piece, that is why I do not comment on uploaded neg scans, I wait for the person to upload the scan of their finished print.

APUG is about traditional photographic processes involving light sensitive materials and chemicals. If people cannot accept that then there are thousands of sites out there which cater for people who make jpegs.

flashgumby · Jul 3, 2009

archphoto said:
... I am not asking APUG to become a hybrid platform, just a bit of acceptance that many of us use digital in some form or the other.

My 2 cents,
Peter

Peter, I don't think there's any argument that it is acceptable to *use* digital processes. The problem is that the *discussion* of these processes is the thin end of the wedge. Once the solid line has been blurred, all bets are off and there is no longer a fixed reference point as to what the boundaries are.

Where else on the internet can you discuss analogue photography without some moron telling you to dump film and get with the times? To save you some time, let me tell you - APUG is our last refuge. If I want to ask questions or discuss the non-analogue steps in my photography, there are endless opportunities elsewhere - and I do use them.

And the lamest excuse of them all, "this forum is digital technology and posted images are digitised" is a smoke screen at best. Puhleeez, gimme a break!!!

Sure I get frustrated that discussing scanning is a no-no, but I understand why, and I'd much rather have scanning black-listed than risk this site becoming anything other than totally analogue.

And that's *my* 2 cents - hope there's some value in it

Regards,
Gordon (the Jaded Computer Geek)

Akki14 · Jul 3, 2009

Andy K - Your reply might have been okay to the person you replied to but the original poster is only using the computer for an intermediate step. Take picture on film, scan, enlarge negative, contact print to produce a real life piece of paper print using light sensitive chemicals on paper.

But I only do analogue enlarged negatives and I'm sitting on the fence as to whether people who do the hybrid route could be allowed to post in the gallery because we'd just have to trust they are using film-originated images to begin with. On the other hand, the hybrid flow has alienated some excellent artists who work in alt processes right off of APUG which is a loss.

Marco B · Jul 3, 2009

nsurit said:
In my opinion, the alt processed folks should not need to go out behind the garage to talk about their work if it involves a scanned and enlarged negative. These folks do have something to share and they have as much in common with APUG ideas and principles as many who currently share their digital images while flying slightly under the radar.

Bill Barber

Hi Bill,

I agree with you that the alt-process people are doing some amazing work that must be seen. Each time I visit the HybridPhoto galleries, I am taken aback by the beautiful work there.

But, I agree with the others, that there are already enough options out there, especially to discuss things. If you don't like to "bail-out" of APUG for discussing hybrid topics, you could consider joining the Hybrid Photo Group here on APUG by PM'ing the moderator, which probably serves a little like the "grey" area of APUG (that I haven't known) used too...

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

It seems you can even post and show your photos with APUG Groups nowadays, so even that is possible!

And, although admittedly, like Autumnjazz stated, the HybridPhoto site gets low traffic, it still is a forum with a lot of interesting and knowledgeable people. Just don't expect your answers to arrive in 5 seconds, like they sometimes do here on APUG.

Marco

nsurit · Jul 3, 2009

I would assert that many, if not most. folks doing alternative processes, processes that that date back to the beginning of photography, use negatives that have been created by scanning a negative and enlarging it. There are some who use large format cameras and contact print from a negative, however these are certainly in the minority. Unlike most APUGers, when doing alternative processes, we don't go out and buy a box Ilford or search eBay for a box of our favorite long ago discontinued paper. No, we start with a blank piece of paper, size it, dry it, apply a sensitized coating, dry it, contact print it either using the sun or a light box and then process it in chemistry we have made. This might be contrasted with a photographer who buys a roll of DX capable film, slips it in their "Mr. Automatic" camera, exposes it, takes it to the local drug store, gets it processed, digitally printed, scanned onto a disk and presents it to APUG as an analog image. They might even shoot it on Kodak 400CN to really impress folks with their B&W images. You tell me who is more connected to photography, traditional processes and image making.

When I go to the news stand there is material I may find offensive, however I wouldn't want the news stand to censor that so those who did have an interest in its content could read it. It is there for me to read if I so choose.

I am of the opinion that folks who use a digitized negative in making alternative process prints, do have something to offer on the forum and should be allowed to post their images and post to that discussion group. Those who sensitivities are offended by such posts don't have to read them. They will be the poorer for it.

Bill Barber

Akki14 · Jul 3, 2009

It is a little sad that people think they *have* to go the digital enlarged negative route though, especially if they're okay B&W darkroom printers, all you have to do is swap out the paper for some APHS ortho litho film and do some contact printing in the darkroom and you're there with an enlarged negative. I'd rather be in a darkroom than having to spot a negative scan then fiddle with it then print it out.

papagene · Jul 3, 2009

This is a tired old argument that keeps popping up periodically and has been settled by the owner of the site. Sean has set up hybridphoto as an alternative and it is up to those who use hybrid techniques to make it work. If you purposely ignore hybridphoto and come to APUG to complain then I have interest in your argument. It is a moot point since Sean has set the parameters for APUG and they don't include digital techniques.
This is "Dead Horse" territory.

gene

Ken N · Jul 3, 2009

Bill, since we are always off-topic anyway, we can discuss this stuff on the OM-List.

Seriously, I think the most foolish thing we did we did was separate the community into two different forums. This was the equivalent of dividing APUG into APUG-FILM and APUG-DARKROOM. It would please me to no end if we could bring HybridPhoto back into the "gray area" again.

But, alas, what is done is done and nobody asked for my opinion.

archphoto · Jul 3, 2009

I stirred up things a bit it seems ......

I asked for a bit of understanding of each other, that is something diferent than asking APUG to become hybrid.

Analogue begins with an analogue medium, film, whether made by Kodak, Fuji and so on or hand made.
It starts with an analogue camera, whether it be a Fujifilm QuickSnap or Olympus Trip 35 or what ever upto the refined beauties of the wooden half and full plate camera's of our past.

It ends with a print made to the best posibilies of those who made the photographs onto analogue film, whether it has been made by a lab or by one's selve on either paper thas has been bought or self sensitized.
Not everybody on this forum is blessed with it's own darkroom.
I will have my own darkroom in August again after an absense of 20 years and am looking forward to it. Looking forward to building it into a space of 3x4.5m, looking forward to make my own prints again.

There is a kind of hybrid going on on APUG allready: first you have the members that have an alalogue camera and use a lab for the rest and then there are members that make their own glass plates, even use the wett process and that sensitize the paper they print on themselves.
I admire the old processes and will try them out in the future.

What we, as APUG-ers should do is teatch the youngsters the beauty of analogue and showing them the posibilies of it, instead of biting one's head of because he/she mentions "d****".
And preserve the knowledge about the old processes ofcourse.

One is not better because he/she uses a wett-plate camera, or uses a Leica instead of an Olympus Trip 35 or Pen EE (I have all 3 by the way)

Peter

nsurit · Jul 3, 2009

I am a member of hybridphoto.com, a site with little traffic and I feel alternative processes have a more general bit of knowledge, information, etc. that many could find to be of benefit. Sticking hybrid out behind the garage, is limiting both to those who use these processes as well as those who don't. I also happen to be a subscriber to this forum and also continue to support it through the use of the classifieds and donations associated with sales I've made on this site. Additionally I've been supportive of the community by, from time to time, giving stuff away for which I no longer have a need.

Limiting discussions to only those things which have not been discussed and/or decided before would assure the status quo. I don't think I would want to live in a world where slavery was the normal, where women didn't have the right to vote, where folks thought the world was flat, where there was no choice of religion . . . These were tired old arguments that had been beat to death.

I would prefer one address my arguments, rather than lable them.

Sean is the owner of the site and I would say we all are stakeholders in the enterprise. As such, I will continue to discuss things which I feel are worthy of discussion and who knows, perhaps things may change. Change is, after all, a given. I doubt Sean is unable to revisit his decisions or to have dialog about them.

I am of the opinion that the folks who digitize a negative for printing their alternative process images have much to offer to folks on APUG and their use of digital in this one step puts them a heck of alot more in the APUG camp than that of the digital camp. To me, moving them to the hybrid community is a little treating them as step-children, untouchables, second class citizens, etc.

Bill Barber

AutumnJazz · Jul 3, 2009

Ken N said:
Bill, since we are always off-topic anyway, we can discuss this stuff on the OM-List.

Seriously, I think the most foolish thing we did we did was separate the community into two different forums. This was the equivalent of dividing APUG into APUG-FILM and APUG-DARKROOM. It would please me to no end if we could bring HybridPhoto back into the "gray area" again.

But, alas, what is done is done and nobody asked for my opinion.

Yes. It would work _so_ perfectly if it was another semi-separate form, à la Français et néerlandais.

papagene · Jul 3, 2009

If the discussion of that one digital step used in alternatives processes can be limited to just the "Gray Area" in the Alternative forum, I would not be adverse to re-opening that area. But it has been proven time and time again that there are some people who just can't contain themselves and limit their discussions to this one area. They just have to push the limits and post digital topics in other forums where it is not warranted.
So, as far as I am concerned, it is the inability of these few to contain their discussion that have created this dual state of affairs, not the rest of us. Aim your ire and frustrations at them and not the site itself.

gene

nsurit · Jul 3, 2009

Any change will come from dialog with Sean and discussion on this site, rather from "yelling" at offenders for past or current misdeeds. Assuming what you say is accurate, and I have no reason to doubt it, all APUGers are being adversely affect by the actions of a few. I would like to see the "Gray Area" be re-opened. In my opinion the hybrid.com site has not been a particularly successful experiment. Bill Barber

Sirius Glass · Jul 3, 2009

Bill,

You have not said anything that was not said in the discussions leading up to the decision separating analog from digital. Go back and read the discussions and the history leading up to the decision.

Before the decision, we would regularly have to have analog versus digital wars started by trolls. The monitors had more than a full time job with that alone. Since the separation the wars have ended.

You complain that HybridPhoto does not get enough traffic. Why not expend your eloquence posting more frequently their and spreading the word about HybridPhoto to other websites.

Steve

SuzanneR · Jul 3, 2009

Sean, I think, always regretted adding the gray area to this site, and to that end felt the Hyrbid site as a stand alone would better serve those using a hybrid workflow. APUG is at its best when it stays on its focus, and the most logical line to draw is keeping the topic purely about analog processes. I'd agree there is some great work being made with a hybrid workflow that we don't see here. If I want to see it, though, I know where to look.

bdial · Jul 3, 2009

Sometimes the hybrid-analog separation is awkward, everyone recognizes that. I agree with others here that the rigid line is appropriate for the site in general. However, there is a hybird area completely within APUG, which is the Hybrid social group started by gr82bart. Any sort of hybrid discussion you like is permitted there.

markbarendt · Jul 3, 2009

Bill,

Are you lobbying McDonalds to offer take-out pizza too?

APUG is a business that has a successful product offering, analog only all the time.

If there were a big market for what you were asking for hybridphoto.com would be a rocking place too.

nsurit said:
I don't think I would want to live in a world where slavery was the normal, where women didn't have the right to vote . . . These were tired old arguments that had been beat to death.

Your comparison tactic here is silly.

I'd say there is at least a small difference between championing human rights and discussing the finer points of a human pastime or vocation.

Truly here on APUG the big limitations are only the basic topic and the expectation of civility.

Similarly, if you went to a "Slow Food" group site they might get irked if you suggested recipes using a microwave or convection oven.

nsurit said:
I am of the opinion that the folks who digitize a negative for printing their alternative process images have much to offer to folks on APUG ...

I am sure this is true Bill.

I'm also sure that, at least for me, once a scanner is part of the process I've lost interest.

In my view, a scanner is just a specialized digital camera.

Using a scanner to make a print introduces a disparate set of skills and tools and problems that have no bearing on analog photography.

Why hybrid?

nsurit

Sirius Glass

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Ken N

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AutumnJazz

archphoto

Andy K

flashgumby

Akki14

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