RE: Organization of archives

Your comments regarding "the original" have, like, totally blown my mind,
man! On the flip side of the coin, I think this is a valid point to raise
with those who still view photographic arts as little or nothing more than
mechanical printmaking, not "real" art. One of their criteria for real art
is that each piece is unique--something that is true even when an
experienced practitioner is using factory produced materials, because there
are still subjective components to making a photographic print. And when
considering the variables--materials, process, and human--inherent in
handmade (i.e., alternative process) prints, what we do is much more like
creating a painting than a print from a press (not that there's anything
wrong with making a bazillion identical copies).

But I agree, Dags can be extremely beautiful things, and that's partially
due to their own uniqueness.

-Schuyler

-----Original Message-----
From: Marie Wohadlo [mailto:mwohadlo@press.uchicago.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 10:38 AM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: RE: Organization of archives

One interesting aspect of analog images is the phenomenon where some have
newly been printed from old negatives and tagged with the year they were
printed, NOT the year the negative was created. This certainly goes for
images which have been cropped, but I'm talking about ones which are even
full frame, theoretically "the same" as "the original". It asks the
question, which/what/when/where is the original? (This is one reason why I
am fascinated by Dags.)

Now, I wonder how many people archive digital images because they want the
ability to produce an "EXACT" print in the future. Hey, or maybe no print
at all, but an RGB view on a monitor.

:)

>In our world, colors may shift or fade and films/emulsions/papers may
>deteriorate, especially when processed stored improperly, but there will
>most likely still be some sort of a readable, recoverable image remaining.
>Where bits and bytes are concerned, that is often not the case.
>
>-Schuyler
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Katharine Thayer [mailto:kthayer@pacifier.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 1:35 AM
>To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
>Subject: Re: Organization of archives
>
>Marie Wohadlo wrote:
> >
> > How about a "live archive" ---> a big disk or array? Maybe mirror it.
> >
> > How many removable media have come and gone? Remember the cantankerous
> > Bernoulli, the omnipresent SyQuest, the cute little Zip, the humble MO
> > (128mb, 230mn, 1gb, etc., etc., etc.).
>
>Gosh, I'd forgotten about the Syquest. Most of my images from the 90s
>are stored on 128 mb MO cartridges that I can no longer access.
>Katharine
Received on Wed Jul 27 12:13:45 2005