<< . The zone system was designed to cope with the relationship between what
film can accept and what silver gelatine paper will print. >>
First, Terry, whatever your problems with software (I've told you the answer
to this is Virtual Access - you would soon save the cost on your phone
bills and we would all get the benfit of more considered responses) somewhere
to the bottom right of your keyboard - probably just below the L key - are
two keys with a < and a > on them, so you should have no problems with
quoting using one of the accepted and incredibly useful (if not essential)
conventions.
I said some weeks back that I felt this was not the place to debate the
merits or otherwise of the zone system and have since spent a lot of time
sitting on my fingers trying hard not to comment on various postings.
However perhaps we could just get one or two things this straight yet again?
The Zone System is not limited to printing on silver gelatin. It is a
general system that can be applied to any materials.
I don't regard myself as a defender of the Zone System. It doesn't need
defence in the sense you suggest. I don't even in any elaborate sense make
use of it. I do however think it is a part of the education of any
photographer. Like most things it should not be an end in itself (a feeling
I get too often from Ansel Adams pictures though I wouldn't personally call him
an anorak. Have called him a few things in the past as you know.)
Actually I think the zone system does not need defence because it is one of
those watersheds that has altered the whole way we think about something - a
paradigm shift if you like. (And like most such essentially metaphoric - nor do
I want to deny the contributions of others and claim it all for St Ansel). It
enabled for the first time the non-mathematically inclined photographer to
have a firm visual understanding of what was happening which previously had
been limited to the those able to interpret the graphs of sensitrometry. It
provided new tools to think about the process - even if we don't actually use
the system as such.
So the other day, in private mail to Terry I was able to write that he
should place a particular exposure reading on Zone III. He knew (I'm sure)what
I meant and probably could understand the reasoning behind this.
Its merit at this level is that it is _beautifully simple_ and available to
those who cannot plot or read a graph or understand a logarithm.
It does not have nor claim any ways of controlling contrast other than those
already available to those who do not use it (time, temp, agitation etc) but
just enables the effects of these to be more readily understood and quantified.
I suspect from what you write that you also confuse the often somewhat
elaborate business of calibration of materials and equipment with the
relatively simple practical application of the system. Of course there are
those (who I might agree to call anoraks) who never do anything but testing.
Your comment about professional printers I think is revealing about your own
attitude and misconceptions about the zone system than anything else. It is not
a system for photographic printing. Professional printers have to cope with
negatives indifferently exposed without reference to any system (and having
seen those from some photographers apparently often without even a meter.) You
and I both know and have laughed over the section of one book where a
professional photographer actually hires a professional printer to come and set
up the 4x5 and take the exposure readings for her. And we both know that what
he did was to use the Zone System!
Up to you of course whether you want to make use of the kind of control the Zone
System makes easy. I don't feel the discipline involved would fit too well with
some personalities. But surely there is no justification for a continued
campaign against it. Or against anoraks for that matter. I suspect Muybridge
would have qualified (and certainly John Ott - thanks Judy) and quite a few
others whose work has enriched photography.
Well, sorry for that Steve. Hands now firmly under bottom again for a while I
hope!
Peter Marshall
Fixing Shadows and elsewhere:
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/cgi-uva/cgiwrap/~ds8s/Niepce/peter-m.cgi