Digital BW, The Print

Bruce,

I ask this respectfully: Are you going to participate meaningfully in this rather interesting discussion, and do some bruising of your own? Or act as a cheerleader on the sidelines, and not risk getting bruised? If letter, let see you donned in a short skirt, waving pomppoms, please.

Shilesh

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Watson <bwyg@...> wrote:
>
> Nicely said Jon. Nicely said.
> --
> Bruce Watson
> 
> 
> 
> piezobw wrote:
> > Shilesh,
> >
> > I don't disagree with you about much what you ranted, and ranting is healthy. It opens up discussion about things that are truly important and thought provoking. It's a philosophical difference between us though, don't you think? 
> >
> > I agree that using color inks is forward thinking and lamenting the loss of traditional photographic values is backwards thinking. But, I've been making digital b&w prints now for nearly three decades and I've seen it all, and started or have done most of it - and nothing new has yet inspired me to adopt it in my own work or that which I do for others. I can't be the one who teaches how to deal with the limitations in ABW, nor its pros and cons. That has to be someone else like yourself. Because for me, ABW exists as a technology which I can easily still exceed.
> >
> > So, the discussion is not so much a commercial argument as to what system is better or worse, but a philosophical argument that is at the core of light and how we capture it and then how we choose to display it back to the eyes of the viewer, and probably what we are willing to compromise in order to do so for the sake of convenience (maybe even expense). 
> >
> > I have to agree with Tyler in regards to lamenting the loss of what silver and platinum can do that Epson ABW and color inks can not do (as well). Yes, I agree with you that its totally backwards thinking - but only because black & white photography basically is extinct...in that it is like the last lumbering and weak dinosaurs on a planet that can no longer support them. They will continue maybe a few more generations at best, but will not be able to keep up with the mammals who need less food and can hide better from the elements. And without the dinosaurs being gone, humans would not have succeeded to invent photography! So perhaps it is a necessary thing. A good thing? No. A more convenient thing? Not for me either.
> >
> > On the other hand, I make photographic printmaking systems and will continue to makes them the only way I know how to, which is to exceed what is available because that is one of the primary motivations for me as a printmaker. When a system comes out that is as good as or better than what I can imagine - I will simply stop. My candle if its not bright enough will no longer have a purpose as developer. I have plenty other passions which I do - and I will not unnecessarily hang onto development when I can still collaborate and continue my own photography and printmaking. My color ink business is far exceeding the business I generate with Piezography. But color ink is not close to my heart in the same way as b&w is.
> >
> > I have been making monochromatic ink as far back as 1977 because inventiveness is next to printmaking. I have been developing printmaking techniques since founding Cone Editions in 1980. If I had my way, all digital printmakers would work on inks and software and behave like traditional printmakers do - so that the medium as a whole would evolve rather than depend upon the OEM. 
> >
> > This is a new notion...not inventiveness being a new notion...rather it is a new notion to be a printmaker using existing technologies without the ability to modify them. That is a modern notion whether in the darkroom or print studio. And frankly, that is what is backwards. Skill is not a modifying tool as you regard. Making ink and software are modifying tools. Paul Roarke has it. Roy Harrington has it. Dozens of others who attempt to mix and blend and find their own way in it have it. You even mentioned that you have tried some experimenting in this regard. But, we're all up against the limitations imposed by patent technologies. Improving our Photoshop skills and fooling printer drivers or operating systems is not a way to evolve printmaking.
> >
> > Neither lithography, etching, woodcut, intaglio, nor silkscreen would have evolved if printmakers had accepted the status quo. All of these new printmaking inventions evolved out of discovering ways to modify and exceed the capability of the commercial version from which it developed. The history of photography has been similar. We all know that. 
> >
> > This is nearly the first time in the history of photography and printmaking that such a large audience has been held captive by the OEM because of the barrier imposed by technology. This is the first technology with limitations built-in that the average user and student can not exceed it, nor experiment with it, because of disabling patents, or the inability of a photographer or printmaker to understand software and ink making.
> >
> > Yet, when you read the messages on this board, what you read is photographers struggling to recapture something lost that is familiar to them in a visual context. They are adapting - some successfully and others not so successfully - to what they used to manage with ease and particular skill associated with experimentation and exploration in the darkroom. Many had produced autographic systems of their own which they are finding impossible to do now.
> >
> > So these are important philosophical differences rather than being arguments or salesmanship - and more people are affected by it than I think you realize. I may be closer to those who struggle because they find their way to me. Piezography is decidedly retro I admit. But, it takes tremendous technology in order to be so - and that makes it forward. Exceeding the status quo is always forward thinking even when one is trying to preserve the past like I am. 
> >
> > In any event there is more than enough room for everyone to do whatever it is they wish to do with these printers. Everyone probably has enough to worry about just keeping print heads moist or figuring out how to upgrade to MacOSX or the latest Windows without undoing everything that they struggled to get (or almost get) right where they wanted (or almost wanted.)  ;) 
> >
> > Jon Cone
> > Professional Rantmaker
>