Where's all that progress we hear about?

[al_kaplan1]

James has me working on this project of making prints from my old

photographs and as I've started printing them and going over my old

notes it makes me wonder just how far we've really come in 40 years.

One of the negatives I was printing today was the then new (in 1964)

Kodak Royal-X Pan Recording Film, only available in bulk. It was

factory rated I believe at ASA (ISO) 1250 but you could push it to

3200 in Acufine, also a relatively new product at the time. It was

grainy but fast and had extended red sensitivity, useful in tungsten

light. I'd used it to shoot some backstage pictures in a dimly lit

tent at the Boston Arts Festival. Today we have Kodak TMZ, also

extremely grainy, and it has about the same effective film speed.

That's progress. You can buy it in cassettes!

 

On stage photos were shot with ASA 400 Ilford HP3, which was a little

bit grainier than today's HP5 Plus, but still quite useable. I'd

souped that in Diafine, brand new at the time, to get an ASA of about

1000.

 

For hardware I used a pair of screw mount bodies. A Leica IIIf black

dial equipped with a Leicavit and a IIIc-K, a millitary version of

the IIIc, with ball bearing shutter and grey paint and vulcanite.

Glass was a 50/1.8 Canon, still considered as good or better (harder

coatings!) than the Summicron of that era, and a 135/3.5 Canon, a

stop faster and a bit sharper than the Leitz Hektor. Sure the latest

50 'cron is sharper as is the new 135/3.4 but how many of us really

utilize that slight gain? The Leicavit is back. It sure isn't $25

second hand anymore!

 

And who were the subjects of my photography that I printed today? Bob

Dylan backstage. On stage he was playing guitar and Joan Baez was

singing with him. Stay tuned...

[Tony Rowlett]

Cool, I can't wait to see these!

[stephen_jones4]

"Don't think twice, it's alright"....

[grant_.]

Come gather 'round people<br>

Wherever you roam<br>

And admit that the waters<br>

Around you have grown<br>

And accept it that soon<br>

You'll be drenched to the bone.<br>

If your time to you<br>

Is worth savin'<br>

Then you better start swimmin'<br>

Or you'll sink like a stone<br>

For the times they are a-changin'<br>

[lee_shively]

But not much.

[paul t]

Al, a lot of that's true. There's a lot of great music around, but it's still

overshadowed by what's gone before. And other technologies might have

advanced, but we're still subject to much the same limitations.<p>

 

The 60s were cool, but only a few people lived thru them. Most of the US was

stuck in the 50s, and most of the UK was stuck in the 40s... <p>

 

But, y'know what? We wouldn't have been having this debate, across the

world, 25 years ago... and looking forward to seeing those pix, just a few

hours after they'd been printed. <p>

[davidfink_photography]

Can't wait to see the Dylan shot.

[gary_woodard]

Progress is a marketing word. We're still trying to figure out how the

pyramids were made and sending out young women to war.

[Rob F.]

Al, I can recall a writer saying, in a photo magazine or book, probably around 1965, that phototography had advanced a great deal, but without the pictures improving. I guess it's still partly true today. The French have a saying: "The more things change, the more they remain the same."

[grant_.]

u people must really be sheltered

[james mitchell dc]

Al, don't forget to keep an eye out for shots of Johnny Cash. I want the first print!

[terry_rory]

Ancient Egyptians would be pretty stumped by the complexities of manufacturing washing machine, microwave ovens, computers, GPS satellites, mobile phones etc etc...

 

They would be even more amazed by the fact that despite a zillion such time and labour saving devices and factories manned by robots we work a longer working week than they ever did and sit around abusing the most fantastic communications technology the world has ever known by saturating it with the most apalling content happy to let it empty and despoil our minds.

 

They would be in total disbelief that we have sent spacecraft to photograph the planets whilst at the same time most of our students cannot reliably name more than about half of them.

 

They would be spellbound by GPS technology that can plot your position anywhere on earth with an error of less than a metre and dismayed at how few 'educated' people know that Egypt is an African country (or even knew that Africa was NOT a country but a continent!)

 

They would be saddened that there are still some people who are so dismissive of Africans being able to construct the pyramids thousands of years ago (with all the sophisticated maths, civil engineering and astronomy necessary for such a task) that they feel it necessary to construct modern 'myths' about aliens from other worlds coming down to do it for them! (Or Atlanteans, yes I forgot those Atlanteans!)

 

We should never get technology confused with progress or progress confused with enlightenment. The modern world has only achieved technology. I dont see the progress and enlightenment is still a dream.

[terry_rory]

Hah. Sitting here listening to a BBC documentary about Gill Scott Heron. Apt quote just now...

 

"A time when the buck stopped somewhere and you could still buy something with it"

 

(Al did you photograph him?)

[al_kaplan1]

Never did, Trevor.

[james mitchell dc]

Trevor, is that the guy who did "The Revolution Will Not Be Televized"?

[terry_rory]

Yes.

 

<a href="http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html">click here</a>

[steve_chan5]

Hmmm, you _could_ be using a DSLR that wirelessly transmits the photos it takes to a laptop for realtime review, and then transmits it to an editor, bouncing the data over fibre optic, satellites, and plain old copper wires.

 

The world changes all the time, but it is people, individually and collectively, that try to preserve the emphemeral.

[al_kaplan1]

Sure could Steve, but that stuff didn't exist when I was shooting those photographs. Nobody even imagined that it would exist. The news media loves the instant transmission. A lot of photographers are fascinated with the technology.

 

The conundrum we face is that there's no way to tell which pictures we make today will be of interest in 35 or 40 years. Which unknown young musician will make it big, which little leaguer hitting a home run or young girl at her dance recital will become senator. So most of those photos will be shot digital and either become "corrupted" in a few years or nobody will have the hardware to read the software. It's hard to throw out contact sheets or negatives because you want to look at them. It's easy to throw out a stack of floppies because few people still have anything on which to access the info.That's the deal we made with the devil in exchange for instant pictures transmitted globaly "right now".

[mskovacs]

Al has any of your work made the transition to digital so the masses outside of the Miami area can see it? (albeit in a lesser state than a fine print)

[paul_neuthaler]

This is why you're the man on the tee shirt!

[Troll]

Yeah, Leica has sure made huge strides in their cameras since the M2/M3 haven't they?

[michael s.]

Trevor and James - Glad to see the Gil Scott Heron references. In addition to "The Revolution Will Not be Televised" -- which was revolutionary (and pre-dated rap by how many years?) -- he recorded some very good records with Brian Jackson and the Midnight Band.

 

I remember some of those tunes well from the early to mid-70's, including a few numbers that could best be described as ballads. Very beautiful.

[jim r]

My respect for Grant just jumped tenfold.

[andrew n.bra hrefhttp]

Off the top of my head, here's a few things which have clearly improved (for me) over

the last couple of decades:

 

(1) Being able to scan and colour fine-adjust images at home. Amazing thing. No more

sending things away to bureaux, and then sending them back to get things done right

(sheesh).

 

(2) The vast improvement in C41 films. Compare (say) Fuji 800 NPZ with any C41 film

from twenty years ago - no contest.

 

(3) Micro-fibre lens-cleaning cloths. I know it isn't the most earth-shattering thing, but

those old "lens tissues" or "impregnated lens cloths" used to drive me nuts and never

worked properly anyway :?)

[jay_.]

Al, what you said is factually correct, but you must recall that from the early 60's until the past couple years all the consumer interest was in color film, not b&w, so that's where the manufacturers put all their R&D. Just as they're now putting it all into digital and not film. Compare Provia 400F with "High Speed Ektachrome 160". Or worse, remember Agfa 500? 400-speed color neg films today are sharper, more saturated and finer-grain than ASA 100 was even as recently as the 1980's. But even in B&W, for those not enamored of the gritty-grainy look (which I'm not knocking, it does have its merits) Kodak's T-Max films were a welcome innovation.

 

There has been enormous progress in photographic technology...film, lens design, camera features et al. What I wouldn't disagree if you were to say it is that there has not been a commensurate leap in the quality of *photographs* over the past 3-4 decades.