Actually, I'd like to argue that we have more choices today,
photographically speaking, than we did 20 years ago. And this trend is
likely to continue.
Platinum printing is a good example. In the 60's and early 70's it was
almost impossible to obtain the materials you needed for this process.
Chemical companies just weren't interested in carrying (much less
selling) the small quantities of potassium chloroplatinate (hope I
spelled that right!); and ferric oxalate, when you could get it, was
pretty well contaminated with humidity and worthless. Even college
chemistry departments (at least the ones I tried) couldn't get these
chemicals.
Starting in the mid to late 70's a cottage industry has developed in
supplying platinum/paladium materials (anyone remember Elegant Images?)
Now, there are at least two places in the US which specialize in
supplying platinum printers and a couple of other places which sell the
chemicals. What's more these places have created some interesting
innovations which would have made our grandfathers jealous, such as
liquid emulsion and developer components (no mixing from powders) and less
toxic citric acid developers. One place (Paladdio) has even
reintroduced precoated platinum printing paper in the US for the first
time in probably 75 years.
This is the best time to be a platinum printer in generations.
I could also point to the revival of the carbon/carbro process in
the 70's by Dr. Green as another example. Add to that the potential
of digital photography, which I see running in parallel to more
traditional photography, and the choices are multiplying rather than
becoming fewer.
The trap is thinking that because a process is no longer commercially
viable on a large scale that it is "lost." In the 70's people moaned
about the loss of high quality silver paper (I do miss DuPont), but
Ilford made a big hit with Galerie and was soon imitated by other
companies which started offering upscale alternatives to RC paper. My
earlier comment about printmakers still doing stone lithography is a
another case in point. Lithographic quality limestone hasn't been mined
since the 30's and, at the end of WWII most of what was left was
destroyed because it contained "secret" maps of Allied positions in
France. As a commercial process, stone lithography essentially died.
But artists still find it a rewarding process to work with. Silver
based photography will continue in much the same manner.
Carson Graves
carson@ileaf.com