Re: [Leica] T#ch P@n

[Ted <tedgrant@home.com>]

Gee Mike, it sure sounds like the TP stuff gets under yer finger nails eh! '-)

ted

Mike Johnston wrote:

> Friends,
> Anyone who wants to shoot Tech Pan doesn't need my permission. Please, go
> ahead, and if it works for you, fine, and I'm sure I would like your
> pictures.
>
> However, I EARNED the right to think it sucks...
>
> I've paid my dues.
>
> For six long years putting out photo magazines one after the other, I had to
> put up with getting pelted with an endless stream of CRAPPY portfolios from
> people who were under the highly mistaken impression that using Tech Pan
> made their work s-p-e-c-i-a-l....oh so special...it was on TECH PAN...the
> BEST film...it had to be good....
>
> Man, did that stuff reek. The work, I mean. I mean, I never saw ONE good
> portfolio come in on TP. Never one damn lousy portfolio in the neighborhood
> of Halfway Decent. The stuff just plain and simple appeals to hopeless
> dweebs searching for some crutch to make up for the fact that they wouldn't
> know a halfway decent picture if it was a snake and bit them on the ass and
> HUNG THERE.
>
> JMB>>>TP is THE film. I use it for many purposes, astronomy, portraits,
> landscapes, document reproduction, photomicrography. <<<
>
> Okay, there's an exception to every rule. I already mentioned that Bob
> Clemens actually managed to produce some good prints with Tech Pan because
> he had to for the Kodak books, and he defends the stuff (although he doesn't
> use it now that he's retired!). Maybe only 97% of TP portfolios suck
> polluted swamp muck and the other 3% are dazzling. I'm willing to believe
> that. So PRESENT COMPANY EXCEPTED, please. Okay? I'm not insulting anybody
> specific here, JMB or anybody else. Please, use Tech Pan if you like it, if
> it works for you, and ignore me. Put a non-perfectly-planar filter on me. I
> don't tell you what to do. I'm sure you are confident enough to ignore my
> opinions. I'm sorry.
>
> But I haaa-a-a-a-a-aaaate that crap, and I'll never shoot a picture on TP
> again if I live to be a hundred. That's just what having to look at all
> those endless god-forsook, piss-poor, weak-ass alleged photographs has done
> to me; made me all cringy, like a whupped dawg.
>
> There it is. Now don't get me started on...no, I'm not even going to mention
> my other _betes noir_; no use tempting fate (like that stops me).
>
> --Mike