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Anticipating the future
About a lifetime ago, I was a systems analyst in the defense industry. In
that endeavor I was taught to examine poor and incomplete evidence in order
to pick out trends that my employer would like to know about so as to
anticipate them. I have to admit it was a lot of fun and an interesting
challenge. It also paid really well for the times.
As I read all of the comments and postings about this that or the other
traditional photo product being discontinued, modified, removed from supply
channels, etc. I am struck by the need to go back into that mode.
Much of alt-photo depends on modern applications of 19th Century ideas
applied through an indtermediate (filter? enhancemet?) step of 20th century
materials. My initial reading of the clues so far tells me that you all
have about 10 years maximum left before the Agfa representative's advice of
"Let them eat cake" is the only game left. We could argue about the time
frame but I don't think that is very productive unless you think the cut off
is 25 years or more in the future.
So before the crisis deepens perhaps it is time for a collective project on
replacing all of the commercial materials you depend on with home brewed
or small scale manufacturing sources. That is, how to take the dependence
on large scale 20th Century commerce out of alt-photo?
For starters, let me propose a first question. How would you make a large
format negative if you had to start with a sheet of mylar and a bottle of
liquid emulsion? Note that I am assuming that mylar and silver nitrate will
be available. Probably a good long term bet.
The second question, of course, is how do you make a bottle of emulsion that
is actually useful. Putting some salt in a bottle of silver nitrate
solution is probably not a sufficient recipe.
ER