Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/03/08

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Subject: [Leica] Magnum & the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing
From: benedenia at gmail.com (Marty Deveney)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 13:24:14 +1030
References: <CABmfTOW9qCxWPnYn-0Xyk8fnTqX+ruzE+-NQWJKE-AbnCg=frA@mail.gmail.com> <CB7E1E42.1B4C8%mark@rabinergroup.com>

Sorry, I clearly got the wrong impression.

Marty

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 11:58 PM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> 
wrote:
> I printed mostly for my clients. Hundreds of them.
> I very seldom printed for "myself" other then maintaining my own portfolio.
> I'm sure for every 100o prints I made at least one was for "myself"
> Between 1974 and 2009 I had about 20 print showings. One gallery show was
> all 20 x 24 inch prints. One was 5x7's. Most were 16x20 fiber prints.
> For a while a while back my prints we being sold for $350 each by a gallery
> in Ohio called Photo Central that some Portland friend of mine sold to them
> or he had them sell them.
> My prints have sold to private collectors. Sometimes not directly from me.
> I've sometimes personally printed my events and weddings.
> Point of purchase displays. Some were 30 x 40 inch color.
> I printed my pictures for three columns I shot and wrote for papers in
> Portland those were 4x5's or 5x7's. Meeting deadlines every week.
> I've printed in bulk promo prints for musicians actors and dancers who want
> a hundred copies of something. Head shots usually. More so when I was first
> starting out.
> One of my very first fashion jobs for a department store, Meier and Frank 
> in
> Portland I had to print 16x20's of the main shot of the model. The print
> dried as I ran down the street with it to meet my deadline 7 blocks from my
> photo studio in downtown Portland Oregon.
> I printed 3 20x24's for a theater set and hand colored them.
> I printed a dozen or so murals for the Oregon bank in Eugene 4 by 5 feet on
> roll paper rolling them though my hand and knees in my parents garage. That
> was my first job in Portland. I was for McCann Erickson advertizing. They
> were trying to get the account for this new shoe company people were ?just
> starting to hear about. It was called Nike.
>
> I do believe this image of the print with all the myriad instructions all
> over it numbers and lines was picked out like the Avedon shot has been for
> its value as an anomaly. It has little value in the real world. It was a
> moment of odd obsessivness by the photographer. Probably laughed about at
> the time.
>
> My black and white printing I did in my darkroom I built myself at my
> various studios. But sometimes I'd print at a rental lab in Portland. And
> that was where I'd for sure print my color neg or direct form transpancy
> prints such as Cibachrome or a Fuji process.
> While making those I printed shoulder to shoulder with countless other pros
> and their assistants. Over three decades. Thousands of people.
> So while many printers may have an isolated view ?of how things get done in
> their darkroom namely their own I did not. I was subjected weekly to how a
> whole ton of people got their printing done. ?And was given advice while I
> printed from the experts at the lab whose job it was to do that.
> I came into working their after a decade of printing by myself mainly but I
> certainly learned a lot be being in an open environment.
>
> Never in my three decade experience printing by myself, at school at the
> custom lab I worked at in Webster Groves, Mo or at the rental lab in
> Portland Oregon did I see anything which came even close as to being as
> obsessively ridiculous as that sketch. I don't know what making a sketch
> like that is an exercise in other than mental masturbation. A joke. Or to
> impress some idiot.
>
>
> --
> Mark R.
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/winterdays/
>
>
>> From: Marty Deveney <benedenia at gmail.com>
>> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>> Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 19:07:30 +1030
>> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Leica] Magnum & the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing
>>
>> I've seen your prints, Mark, so I know you're a great darkroom
>> printer. ?But I'm also pretty sure you mostly or only printed for
>> yourself. ?I'd be surprised if even your simplest prints didn't have a
>> diagram that looked like this if you actually wrote everything down.
>> This diagram isn't the result of OCD or even really that complicated;
>> for instance all those concentric circles around James Dean's figure
>> just indicate a dodge with an oblong dodge tool, lifted and dropped.
>> The closeness of the circles and the numbers are like a topographic
>> map, and show the gradient and overall difference from edge to edge of
>> the dodge (or burn).
>>
>> This kind of diagram, of course, is necessary when the photographer
>> doesn't print their own work and doesn't have time to see, or is
>> separated from, the printer. ?These days, of course, you can do it
>> over the web face to face. ?I've printed many, many negs from diagrams
>> like this. ?After a while the printer and photographer start to
>> develop a visual-graphic synergy and the number of reprints drops
>> (from the printer's POV) and the first sets of prints increasingly
>> match expectations, and describing what they want gets easier (from
>> the photographers' POV).
>>
>> It's pretty much all academic now, since so few master silver gelatin
>> printers still work commercially.
>>
>> Marty
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 3:36 PM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> 
>> wrote:
>>> I cant figure out if this is an example of a kind of obsesive compulsive
>>> psychosis or an attempt at humor. There is also a famous one of a head 
>>> from
>>> Avedon. An image marked up way past any reason or comprehension.
>>> I'll tell you what I think it is its drugs in the 80's.
>>> But it might be Public relations. Your clients are supposed to think that
>>> even though you ?yourself are not making the prints the relation between 
>>> you
>>> and your assistant or printer is so involved that its worth all the
>>> ridiculous money they are paying you for the job and or print.
>>>
>>> In reality when you go through sheets and sheets of paper in the darkroom
>>> its a rather organic process of trial and error. And you cant be 
>>> reminded of
>>> it from a mark up or controlled by someone giving you a marked up thing 
>>> like
>>> that. The printer has to sweat it out themselves. Adams called it a
>>> performance of a score. But your head is not buried in the score. You 
>>> have
>>> to look up from time to time and cue your orchestra.
>>> --
>>> Mark R.
>>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/winterdays/
>>>
>>>
>>>> From: Philippe Amard <philippe.amard at sfr.fr>
>>>> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>>>> Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2012 22:21:14 +0100
>>>> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Leica] Magnum & the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing
>>>>
>>>> Nice document
>>>>
>>>> OTT: since manipulated comes the latin word for hand, as in handled -
>>>> I agree that LR is just on the right track then
>>>>
>>>> Thanks again
>>>> Philippe
>>>>
>>>> Le 7 mars 12 ? 18:25, Robert Baron a ?crit :
>>>>
>>>>> If you've never seen a notated print map, look here:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://theliteratelens.com/2012/02/17/magnum-and-the-dying-art-of-darkroom-
>>>>> pr
>>>>> inting/
>>>>>
>>>>> If that is necessary to achieve an excellent print from a film
>>>>> negative,
>>>>> why would it be inappropriate to do similar manipulation to achieve an
>>>>> excellent image from a digital negative? ?Or to put it another way,
>>>>> why
>>>>> wouldn't it be a necessary part of your work?
>>>>>
>>>>> --Bob
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Leica Users Group.
>>>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Leica Users Group.
>>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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In reply to: Message from benedenia at gmail.com (Marty Deveney) ([Leica] Magnum & the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing)
Message from mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner) ([Leica] Magnum & the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing)