Re: hold on the pinhole

Larry Bullis (lbullis@ctc.ctc.edu)
Sat, 18 Oct 1997 10:52:59 -0700

This quote is from Moulay, and from a different thread:

>Sharpness and resolving power are good for a glass lens isn't it ?
>To my point of view the advantage of the pinhole image is the noisy effect
>it shares with the film emulsion, after this it's an artist business.

For me, the point here, and it is an important one:

We can use glass for our optics. If we do, we can select from a vast
array of possibilities which range from the wonderful products of firms
such as E. Leitz to broken coke bottle shards. Why not? Or we can use
no glass.

We can use paper from yellow or orange boxes to print on, or we can mix
our own from laundry detergent and peanut butter, if we can get it to
work. We can dig up formulae from old books, or invent new ones. Why
not?

It seems to me that the idea of alt-photo-process is not just "alt" to
silver but "alt" in a much more global sense. Unless, that is, "alt" is
in German, meaning "old". There's an interesting double entendre there,
but I'm not willing to exclude new developments. I believe "alt" means
"alternative". It is a very long time interest of mine, this "alt"
business. You may find me in Kent Wade's book, published in the '70's:
"Alternative Photographic Processes". While the book was a very
important contribution to the idiom, I don't believe it defines the
field. Wade did not go into alternative imaging devices, but a lot of us
were, unbeknownst to one another, beginning to explore those regions as
well.

Each of us has a peculiar orientation and I think there is a natural
tendency to want the topic to be what each of us individually thinks it
is. If it really is "alt", it may also be "alt" to what I, individually,
think is important, because I, too, am busily working out a set of
conventions, however personal and ideosyncratic they may be. Personally,
I don't care much for dwelling on pinhole diameters either, but I do feel
that the issues that come with any and all alternatives to what
market-oriented photography hands us are really critical and deserve a
great deal of attention. It seems to me, also, that this list is the
appropriate forum for discussions of this nature because it is, as far as
I know, the only forum that explicitely embraces "alt photo....".

It is true that there is a general tendency in the group to hold fairly
closely to technical issues and for me that gets vaguely tiresome
sometimes. It is safer to stick with the technical, to be sure. But the
group has also demonstrated that it has a membership that is willing to
take on broader issues. I appreciate this a lot, and I wish to support
it. The technical stuff is important, but if that is all there is, it
gets to look a lot like Pinhole Diameter and I get tired of deleting too,
but I do it willingly because if I don't allow room for others, how can I
expect them to allow room for me?

Larry Bullis
Skagit Valley College