Re: digital and analogue photography -the essay

[Catherine Rogers <chrogers@bigpond.com>]

Chris,

You got it. It was like the vultures circled, then flew down to first 
batter their prey, and then pick at the carcas. I was attacked 
personally, asked to justify myself (by someone I had never heard of 
outside that list anyway), patronized - first because I'm not American 
(or European), and, secondly, as a woman I clearly had no business 
speculating about technological matters, and, like you said you copped, 
I couldn't possibly know what I was talking about, and so on and on. I 
didn't even finish reading the second long post from one argumentative 
bloke who disagreed with everything, and he clearly hadn't bothered to 
read the essay anyway. Apart from one respondent with a background 
working for the big three printers, who well understood what I was 
saying, I don't think the others quite understood what I was on about at 
all, let alone thought that the shift from analogue to digital deserves 
analysis. Obviously, I think  an analysis is important, relevant and 
timely. They seemed to think I was arguing for a return to horse and 
cart days - which is NOT my argument at all. Oh yes, I was also accused 
of being academic! Well, if if you can't have a scholarly discussion on 
a list called photo history.....  Not that I haven't been treated 
similarly on one or two other photo lists I'm on - lists to do with 
high-end digital printing and scanning.

When I first posted a link to my essay to the photohistory list last 
week, I prefaced it with a very condensed summary - it was my response 
to a question about the history of digital printing in photography. 
Oooooops. As I said, I thought that the question was both interesting 
and serious, and that my essay - based to some extent on exchanges and 
the activities of this list - could make a contribution. The 
photo-history list certainly has had its good moments, and there have 
been some fine exchanges, but that is well in the past (apart from a 
very interesting discussion about a print that went up for auction 
recently, and was subsequently withdrawn, a print originally thought to 
have been made by T. Wedgwood, but now it seems to have been made much 
later). And no, I dont think that the slowness of this list has anything 
to do with the posts on the photo-history list - if it does, be pleased 
that some of whatever it is that passes for discussion there, is there, 
and not here.

Hence my very clean and tidy house. However briefly it will stay that 
way. And thanks for your response, Chris - I totally agree that notions 
of perfection are an important part of such a discussion (They argued 
with that there too) - and your response too, Clair. I look forward to more.

I feel a little bit better after all that :-) The sky will probably fall 
in now that I have openly expressed my disgust with the behaviour of 
persons on another list.

Thanks again one and all
best
Catherine

Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
> Ohhh Catherine,
> You were the subject of a controversy on a list?  How novel :) Dish 
> the dirt--do tell what was the main crit!!  A lot of us aren't on the 
> history list--for me, one more list would be undoable but I do wonder 
> if the reason this list is so DEAD is people are on all sorts of other 
> lists like APUG and Photo History.  Heck, for some reason, I will send 
> this letter today and I am not getting my own mail back from alt, 
> AGAIN.  This has happened before. The letters are showing up on the 
> web mirror, tho.
>
> Seriously, if I could only list the things people have told me on 
> lists, it would be helpful to you to feel you have company.  My 
> favorite came from a person on another list who said something to the 
> effect of with how little I know how could I be teaching?
>
> Let me make one brief comment as I am reading through the paper, as I 
> could comment LOTS.  I totally agree with your point about people 
> sending off their work to be printed digitally now.  Our students send 
> their work to a place called Whitehouse Custom Color and get these 
> big-ass digiprints back for really very cheap.  This has been since we 
> dismantled, sadly, our huge color processor last May.  I still cannot 
> get used to this.  I used to labor to get my prints perfect, free of 
> dust, in focus, color balanced within 1/2 point of magenta, etc. etc. 
> and they do none of that.  It seems so...unfair, almost like cheating.
>
> But the prints are gorgeous, and the excellent students use their 
> extra free time to produce really good work.  My biggest complaint is 
> those who take crappy images and print large uncolorbalanced crappy 
> digiprints as if bigger were going to make a bad image or badly 
> printed image good.  Quality still stands, whether analog or digital.  
> And I would say I see this issue on a weekly basis in my classes.
>
> And the digital revolution has completely made alt easier and better 
> IMHO.
>
> More later after I read the whole paper.
> Chris
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