RE: How Independent Are We, Really?
Ho-ho! Please don't strikethrough home made pinhole cameras... (For instance, I have a self-made 15x30cm curved plane panoramic pinhole camera - which still waits its first use since when I finished it on May; shame on me!) There are also ways to make your own lens and camera (proper!); see the book "Primitive Photography: A Guide to Making Cameras, Lenses, and Calotypes" by Alan Greene. (http://tinyurl.com/2ez7fm) Yes, you still need something light sensitive - which most probably would be factory produced - but there are people out there doing research (and/or sharing previously done research, along with their personal experience) about DIY light sensitive silver emulsions... (And we have Dageurreotype, Calotype, Wet-Plate Collodion, Dry-Plate...) Regards, Loris. -----Original Message----- From: John Grocott [mailto:john.grocott403@ntlworld.com] Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 12:10 AM To: The List Subject: How Independent Are We, Really? Judy's and Don's points taken, but ''alternative'' photo processes could certainly not exist without the good old lens and camera, and how much is owed to the research and development done by individuals and exploited by vast companies in that basic field of photography? It's commercial Life. The advent of the domestic box brownie and the like. The roll film and then the Oscar Barnac 35mm camera using motion picture film. We have always been ''at the mercy'' of the factory setup. The production of B/W bromide paper established a normality of print processing and a ''mainstream'' mode of photography. A massive dependence! ! Now we seem to feel that present technology is a form of control over these past accepted ways of making pictures. I do feel that most strongly when I have to discard a bunch of electronic garbage because it cannot be viably repaired. Same with cameras, altho' only recently did I buy one and its still working tho' its almost obsolete and the damned thing needs batteries which the Nikon FM 2 never did. But its great to have an easily captured digital record of the kids on holiday. They are certainly not ''alternative''. As Seymour Krim once remarked, ''Use what you've got and use what you aint got, too. Oh, well. Lets struggle on with the F / Art. That's where the cash is. Hehehehe! Quirky John- Photographist - London - UK.
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