Re: [Leica] A Humbling Experience

["Dan Post" <dwpost@email.msn.com>]

Glen-
Not at all: Back then, if a century ago is the age, photographers spent long
apprenticeships to become experts in what they did. No meters- exposure as
we used to say, "By Guess, or By God!"
You had to go into a darkroom, pour colloidion, a mixture of ether and
nitrate of cellulose mixed into a syrup, onto a glass plate. Rotate the
plate till it was completely covered, pour off the excess, let dry until it
was just tacky- then dip it into a bath of silver nitrate, then salt water,
I believe to form a wet solution of silver chloride on the plate. You rushed
to get it into a holder and into the camera before it dried. Made the
exposure then developed it, fixed it, washed it, and dried it.
Couldn't very well snap off 5 fps with that rig!
I would imagine that if you took a larger format shot, using the same light,
slow film filtered to use the red blue end of the spectrum, and a good
quality exhibition type, silver rich paper, you could very well duplicate
the results, or at least the look/!
Dan
- -----Original Message-----
From: Glen M. Robinson <gmrobinson@imation.com>
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Date: Thursday, June 03, 1999 10:31 AM
Subject: [Leica] A Humbling Experience


>
>
>     I just received a humbling experience.  My wife purchased a photo
album at
>a garage sale yesterday that contained family portraits from Renaas Studio
in
>Decorah, Iowa.  No one at the sale had a clue who these people are and the
date
>when these pictures were taken, but based on the clothes they are wearing
we
>guess that the photographs are at least a century old if not older.
>
>     I have been an amateur photographer for forty or so years and have
done my
>own darkroom work during much of this time.  I use Leicas, Rolleis, and
Canons
>and enlarge my Ilford 100 Delta and Kodak Tri-X negatives processed with
XTOL
>and D-76 with Schneider apo lenses.
>
>     I am terribly humbled by these antique pictures; I cannot produce this
type
>quality with my high tech gear.  The sharpness, gradation, and other visual
>characteristics of these prints are breathtaking.  I realize that these
pictures
>are contact prints, but are the wonderful films and lenses that we use
today in
>reality lower in quality in the essential operating parameters than those
of
>that time?
>
>     Glen Robinson
>
>