Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: GrahamBy on February 29, 2016, 06:50:23 am
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Yes, I like Cartier-Bresson's work. However he's already famous, so I wonder if we need to build him up to super-human level in a poetic elegy?
Exhibit 1: "and the play on words arising from the “Railowsky” poster appearing in a railway station"
Well yes, except that HCG was French, and the word "rail" doesn't really occur in any of the French words associated with ralways: it was behind "la gare", which serves "le chemin de fer" ("paths of iron"). I'd say fortuitous, rather than pre-visualised.
Exhibit 2: "the running boy in this image was probably previsualized by Cartier-Bresson"
Well maybe. I'd probably believe he imagined a person walking into that space... it'd be interesting to see the contact sheet, I doubt he waited for a running boy before exposing any film.
Exhibit 3: "Cartier Bresson uses the subject, a little girl standing on a man’s outstretched hand, to turn a dynamic waiting stage — the natural canvas of water, mountain and clouds behind the girl — into a static painting."
That's certainly a challenging juxtaposition: "dynamic waiting". Especially when it's a lake and some hills that are doing the waiting, objects not usually noted for their dynamic potential. In fact the sentence makes no sense to me at all, and reads like the sort of post-modernist Lacanian stream of consciousness crap that art has been afflicted with for the last 40 years or so.
Exhibit 4, back behind the station: "The location of the right heel of the man jumping from the ladder in Behind the Gare – so perfectly timed – reveals an unseen world, flashing before our eyes, normally veiled by the flow of time."
Really? No one ever imagined that there is a moment before a splash? Didn't J-H Lartigue do similar things many, many times?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/591b5a0d1cbfe0f9bdce77759633228736f7ce6d.jpg
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He hasn't been mentioned on here - as far as I know - for a while so another thread about him won't go amiss. Unfortunately there won't be a consensus of opinion as to how good he was because there hasn't been one in the past. Personally speaking I am neutral in my thinking about him. ::)
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For me, it's not a question of whether he deserves another 'poetic elegy' or whether there is consensus as to how good he was. It's the problem of yet another article/thread reducing his body of work to the 'decisive moment' mantra. (To be clear, I'm not specifically criticizing this author or this article, just that nearly all writings/ discussions are solely focused on the 'decisive moment' theme.) As though his photography was all about waiting on the streets for someone to jump or ride by on a bicycle or make some motion that he captured at precisely the right time.
What about the rest of his work? Where are the articles discussing his strong Surrealist influences, without which the 'decisive moment' would have had much less visual impact? What about his photojournalism work or his environmental portraiture? Or even his film work?
There is so much more to Cartier-Bresson. And even if limited to the 'decisive moment', so much more to his photographs than the, well, decisive moment. I'd love to read an informed article about the difference between the millions of photos of people caught yawning on a bus or sleeping on a park bench or walking under a funny poster, etc. and the visual art captured within Cartier-Bresson's photos.
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Welcome, Sophia; nice to have you aboard!
Good points re. HC-B, but perhaps this isn't possible in a website environment: it needs yet another book...
Maybe it's a case of better some mention than none.
Rob C
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What about the rest of his work?
Perhaps your local library can borrow a definitive book from some less local library:
Henri Cartier-Bresson (http://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/henri-cartier-bresson-here-and-now-hardcover) : Here and Now -- … the more than 30,000 photographs that he left to posterity have been carefully conserved and classified by the foundation that bears his name, and it is obvious to all that the concept of 'the decisive moment', while applicable to some of his most famous pieces, is far to restrictive to encompass this vast body of work.
…
Through his meetings with the Surrealists, it was as if he had been programmed to become a Communist. … From the moment when Cartier-Bresson began to collaborate with the Communist press, in the spring of 1936, his subjects were largely determined by the editors for whom he worked and the ideology they championed.
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"Through his meetings with the Surrealists, it was as if he had been programmed to become a Communist. … From the moment when Cartier-Bresson began to collaborate with the Communist press, in the spring of 1936, his subjects were largely determined by the editors for whom he worked and the ideology they championed."
Not sure if this is a quotation or the poster's own view; however, as with many other Paris-based photographers of the time, they were getting much of their work from the left-wing press, and that certainly explains the great volume of work shot in the slummier areas of Paris: exactly the material required to push an agenda. Let's face it: many of these photographers were of Jewish descent, had faced great dangers just to survive and to escape to a safer land; as émigrés they had little natural love for the largely fascist regimes that caused their exodus, and it's often all too easy to conflate - wrongly - right-wing with fascist... It's selfish, I know, but from their pain came a lot of great work giving many of us pleasure today, as well as historical record of times past/lost.
We had a smaller-scale version of the same work going down in Britain pre-WW2; however, the new post-war wave of thought (and marketable material) was to the new future we all saw coming - which for almost all, it did. But it didn't completely die: the English Sunday colour supplements, as in The Sunday Times, The Observer and Telegraph did their stint with documentary, but even there it ended up being about entertainment. America had its parallels on an even grander scale in at least one magical name: Life.
But it all has to keep changing or lose buyers. Proprietors of the new breed are not idealists. And now, it's not even competition amongst peers: it's new media.
Rob
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I certainly didn't mean to belittle HCB... thanks Sophia for saying it more clearly than me :-)
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"Through his meetings with the Surrealists, it was as if he had been programmed to become a Communist. … From the moment when Cartier-Bresson began to collaborate with the Communist press, in the spring of 1936, his subjects were largely determined by the editors for whom he worked and the ideology they championed."
Not sure if this is a quotation or the poster's own view; however, as with many other Paris-based photographers of the time, they were getting much of their work from the left-wing press, and that certainly explains the great volume of work shot in the slummier areas of Paris: exactly the material required to push an agenda. Let's face it: many of these photographers were of Jewish descent, had faced great dangers just to survive and to escape to a safer land; as émigrés they had little natural love for the largely fascist regimes that caused their exodus, and it's often all too easy to conflate - wrongly - right-wing with fascist... It's selfish, I know, but from their pain came a lot of great work giving many of us pleasure today, as well as historical record of times past/lost.
We had a smaller-scale version of the same work going down in Britain pre-WW2; however, the new post-war wave of thought (and marketable material) was to the new future we all saw coming - which for almost all, it did. But it didn't completely die: the English Sunday colour supplements, as in The Sunday Times, The Observer and Telegraph did their stint with documentary, but even there it ended up being about entertainment. America had its parallels on an even grander scale in at least one magical name: Life.
But it all has to keep changing or lose buyers. Proprietors of the new breed are not idealists. And now, it's not even competition amongst peers: it's new media.
Rob
Interesting historical perspective - thanks! As a (degreed) student of history, but not specifically art history, it's always seemed to me that it would be near impossible to fully understand, if not art as a whole, but certainly documentary art, without a relevant knowledge of the times and circumstances surrounding its creation.
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Since this topic devolved into a tiresome and negative sniping match, I have split it.
Its rump is banished to the Coffee Corner
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… it's always seemed to me that it would be near impossible to fully understand, if not art as a whole, but certainly documentary art, without a relevant knowledge of the times and circumstances surrounding its creation.
Yes, without relevant context we are likely to misunderstand or simply miss what was meant. However, having seen how Clément Chéroux (http://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/henri-cartier-bresson-here-and-now-hardcover) puts Cartier-Bresson's photographs into context, I'd say the relevant context is quite narrow.
We have to know such & such was taken to represent French colonialism, to understand why the statue is "pointing" in that photo. We have to understand that those photos were made for a communist evening newspaper to celebrate holidays for workers newly introduced by a French socialist government, to understand why they show those people relaxing along the river bank.
I don't think it particularly helps to know that Cartier-Bresson was an heir to one of France’s larger industrial fortunes (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/fb39e1e8-93c8-11e3-a0e1-00144feab7de.html) or that his mother was Catholic (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/03/02/the-moment-that-counts-an-interview-with-henri-car/).
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I don't think it particularly helps to know that Cartier-Bresson was an heir to one of France’s larger industrial fortunes (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/fb39e1e8-93c8-11e3-a0e1-00144feab7de.html) or that his mother was Catholic (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/03/02/the-moment-that-counts-an-interview-with-henri-car/).
Actually, I think it does. It explains how somebody could afford to spend the money needed to actually learn how to become a photojournalist in that time. He could afford to shoot the way he wanted until he found an audiance that was willing to pay him to shoot.
I really like HCB for his images but he wasn't actually a great photographer (nor a great printer). I saw a major retrospective show of him at the Chicago Art Institute...there were a ton of his own made prints and I gotta tell you, they were't all that great. The photographs that were reproduced in magazines were often quite small which hid the photographic short comings. There were a lot of images, when printed bigger (like 11x14) that showed a lot of missed-focus, camera shake and blown highlights or plugged shadows. The prints themselves tended to be sloppy and in many cases poorly processed with a lot of fixer stains–often due, I suspect to trying to meet deadlines. Many of the prints in the show came from the various magazines he worked for.
But the one thing that always came through was the composition (often lucky or due to creative cropping) and that very special skill of being in the right place at the right time with a camera to capture that moment.
The show was one of the best photo shows I've seen. Not the same as seeing, the Art Institute does have the collection and additional info on their website: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/exhibitions/Cartier-Bresson/overview (http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/exhibitions/Cartier-Bresson/overview)
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Actually, I think it does. It explains how somebody could afford to spend the money needed to actually learn how to become a photojournalist in that time.
It helps explain other aspects of Cartier-Bresson's biography; does it help explain Behind the Gare St. Lazare ?
The photographs that were reproduced in magazines were often quite small which hid the photographic short comings.
So the photos were good enough for the client (like Weegee's photos).
There were a lot of images, when printed bigger (like 11x14) that showed a lot of missed-focus, camera shake and blown highlights or plugged shadows.
For the art market, were the Cartier-Bresson photos shown in Julien Levy's gallery printed that size or smaller?
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[to Schewe]
Funny, that you would consider him 'not a great photographer' because of things like blown highlights or plugged shadows! Or that you would consider his composition skills to be related to 'luck' or 'creative cropping', or that you think being in the right time at the right place is the very special skill he had!
I wish we could have a great discussion about this very topic, as it gets to the heart of what makes for great photography and great photographers. And how different people view these things quite differently. But alas it seems impossible to have 'discussions' rather than fights in these forums, so I'll just say that your post would be a great starter if we ever could have a discussion!
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Sophia,
Funny, that you would consider him 'not a great photographer' because of things like blown highlights or plugged shadows! Or that you would consider his composition skills to be related to 'luck' or 'creative cropping', or that you think being in the right time at the right place is the very special skill he had!
I wish we could have a great discussion about this very topic, as it gets to the heart of what makes for great photography and great photographers... But alas it seems impossible to have 'discussions' rather than fights in these forums, so I'll just say that your post would be a great starter if we ever could have a discussion!
Having been warned that they face being banned if their behaviour continues, the forum members in question are unlikely to tempt (their) fate by 'fighting'.
I for one would be interested to learn what you have to say on the discussion you wish you could have. For my part, I commit to you to not 'fight'.
What say you?
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Funny, that you would consider him 'not a great photographer' because of things like blown highlights or plugged shadows! Or that you would consider his composition skills to be related to 'luck' or 'creative cropping', or that you think being in the right time at the right place is the very special skill he had!
I was referring to his technical skills not his ability to make great images. And yes, being in the right place at the right time with a camera is a tremendous skill...similar to Jay Maisel or any great street photographers.
And we CAN have a great discussion...we have had a good one already :~) Just leave out the nastiness and attacks.
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[to Schewe]
Funny, that you would consider him 'not a great photographer' because of things like blown highlights or plugged shadows! Or that you would consider his composition skills to be related to 'luck' or 'creative cropping', or that you think being in the right time at the right place is the very special skill he had!
I wish we could have a great discussion about this very topic, as it gets to the heart of what makes for great photography and great photographers. And how different people view these things quite differently. But alas it seems impossible to have 'discussions' rather than fights in these forums, so I'll just say that your post would be a great starter if we ever could have a discussion!
The problem ain't lookin' for fights: the problem is that different strokes please different folks.
That being so, people get defensive of their own position and, consequently, a slur on a hero is a slur on oneself and, obviously, feathers ruffle and spurs come out.
Feel strongly about anything and it's pretty much inevitable. Feel lukewarm, and you just don't care enough to become emotionally involved and so there isn't going to be much point in saying anything at all. We can already find the latter thrill on tv.
Worse, photography is essentially a visual experience and words, unless with pictures beside them, can mean so many different things that, in such a context as a forum, they eventually mean nothing. The surprising thing, really, is that regardless of the pitfalls, so many of us keep trying.
Rob C
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It's the problem of yet another article/thread reducing his body of work to the 'decisive moment' mantra.
The problems arise when an author's remarks drift-away from Cartier-Bresson's own repeated statements.
Although the author may find it helpful to look at subject and background, Cartier-Bresson seems to have looked at picture content and formal relationships (http://petapixel.com/2015/05/03/an-interview-with-henri-cartier-bresson-from-1958/).
Although others fix-upon the question of chance, Cartier-Bresson would "pick and force chance to come to [him]".
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My very scant reading of Cartier-Bresson himself suggests that he came up with the idea of the "moment décisif" not so much to glorify his talent, but as an answer to the question of whether photography was a creative discipline: ie to counter the argument that a photographer just captures what is in front of him without creativity. So HC-B opposed that the creative aspect was in selecting what to put in the frame, and when to press the button.
In other words, he was saying that this is characteristic of photography, and whether it is done more or less well is the measure of the photographer. I have the impression that it has since been turned around to suggest it was characteristic of HC-B.
Isaac?
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Anyone interested in finding out more about H C-B's thinking would do well in getting The mind's eye - writing on photography ad photographers published by Aperture.
In the first chapter, The camera as a sketchbook, there is a section about the decisive moment with subheads on 'the picture story', 'the subject', 'composition', and so on. It is interesting to read what his thoughts about that process were in1952, which is when he wrote that article. It is also interesting to note what wrote about colour photography in 1952, and then in a short postscript in 1985.
The book contains section written in different decades by the same person on the same subject and gives us some insight on H C-B's take on the world. It is only USD $16 at Aperture.org.
Jean-Michel
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… came up with the idea …
The phrase has a history -- «Il n'y a rien en ce monde qui n'ait un moment décisif.»
I don't recall anything to suggest Cartier-Bresson either intended to "glorify his talent" or provide "an answer to the question of whether photography was a creative discipline".
He repeatedly provides the same rationale for his approach to his style of photography -- "First I would like to say that it is only a rule I established in myself, a certain discipline, but it is not a school, it’s not a… it's very personal (http://petapixel.com/2015/05/03/an-interview-with-henri-cartier-bresson-from-1958/)."
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Unless this has already been posted and I missed it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyhMqDfmG9o
Seems only fair to give the man himself the final word.
Rob C
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I like the article -- it reminded me of what I like about Cartier-Bresson. I know I'm a little late to the conversation, but:
As to GrahamBy's original comments, (1) "Rail" can be a pun in French, though it might be a trifle obscure. "Derailler" means to run off the rails, which is sort of what the jumping man is doing...(2) I don't think the author meant to say that *that* specific boy was pre-visualized, just that the setting was, as it was with the man jumping over the puddle. H C-B typically set a kind of photographic trap which snapped on his subjects, but often missed. What we see are the successful trappings. (4) I don't think the author suggested that the moment normally veiled by the flow of time was uniquely revealed by H C-B, just that he did it here. What bothered me more about (4) is that it seems to me that I've read that before, perhaps in Sontag or Barthes?
As to Sophia's first comment, I think virtually all of H C-B's most interesting work displays the decisive moment characteristic. I find most of his explicitly journalistic work to be pedestrian; I worked with a lot of good photojournalists in my life, and from looking at his work, I wouldn't have ranked him among the best. Like much photojournalism, the interest in his photos lies in history, not in composition, and if you don't know or care about the history, then the photos won't mean much to you. His best work is all about composition.
As for Schewe's comment, I think a lot of those poor photos were the journalistic work I referenced above. When I was working for newspapers, I saw many, many very good photos printed to last just as long as it took to get them in the paper. They were *dipped* in fixer, rather than really fixed. Sometimes, they only had to last a half-hour, and when you went back to the old photo files, you found a lot of ruined photographs. On the other hand, I have an original H C-B on my wall (the one of the little girl running up the stairs between the white buildings) and it is gloriously printed and preserved. I suspect any survey of H C-B's work is going to contain a lot of pretty badly preserved stuff, because it wasn't made to be preserved.
Rob C. said, "Seems only fair to give the man himself the final word." Why is that? I often find artists lie a lot about their work. Even great artists. In fact, lie more often than not.
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... gloriously printed and preserved...
By my countryman, Voja Mitrovic (http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/08/voya-mitrovic-part-i.html) :)
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By my countryman, Voja Mitrovic (http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/08/voya-mitrovic-part-i.html) :)
A most interesting article! Thanks for the link, Slobodan.
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By my countryman, Voja Mitrovic (http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/08/voya-mitrovic-part-i.html) :)
Excellent, thanks :)
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I like the article -- it reminded me of what I like about Cartier-Bresson. I know I'm a little late to the conversation, but:
As to GrahamBy's original comments, (1) "Rail" can be a pun in French, though it might be a trifle obscure. "Derailler" means to run off the rails, which is sort of what the jumping man is doing...(2) I don't think the author meant to say that *that* specific boy was pre-visualized, just that the setting was, as it was with the man jumping over the puddle. H C-B typically set a kind of photographic trap which snapped on his subjects, but often missed. What we see are the successful trappings. (4) I don't think the author suggested that the moment normally veiled by the flow of time was uniquely revealed by H C-B, just that he did it here. What bothered me more about (4) is that it seems to me that I've read that before, perhaps in Sontag or Barthes?
As to Sophia's first comment, I think virtually all of H C-B's most interesting work displays the decisive moment characteristic. I find most of his explicitly journalistic work to be pedestrian; I worked with a lot of good photojournalists in my life, and from looking at his work, I wouldn't have ranked him among the best. Like much photojournalism, the interest in his photos lies in history, not in composition, and if you don't know or care about the history, then the photos won't mean much to you. His best work is all about composition.
As for Schewe's comment, I think a lot of those poor photos were the journalistic work I referenced above. When I was working for newspapers, I saw many, many very good photos printed to last just as long as it took to get them in the paper. They were *dipped* in fixer, rather than really fixed. Sometimes, they only had to last a half-hour, and when you went back to the old photo files, you found a lot of ruined photographs. On the other hand, I have an original H C-B on my wall (the one of the little girl running up the stairs between the white buildings) and it is gloriously printed and preserved. I suspect any survey of H C-B's work is going to contain a lot of pretty badly preserved stuff, because it wasn't made to be preserved.
Rob C. said, "Seems only fair to give the man himself the final word." Why is that? I often find artists lie a lot about their work. Even great artists. In fact, lie more often than not.
Well, your experience hasn't been mine. If anything, I have concluded that most of the ones I actually know are possibly far too modest about themselves. In fact, isn't that one of the reasons so many of us really need agents, could we but find one to take us on? Perhaps you are reporting on an exclusively American phenomenon, tinged with vestiges of memory of the doctrine, presumably peddled to one during youth, of everyone being a winner... I suppose that could lead to attempts at over-compensation by being elastic with the truth, even of that truth as seen by and of the self.
As for why HC-B might be the best guy for the final word - perhaps because he has got to be the most talked about, written about snapper on the planet. Anything and everything that can be reported, claimed or invented about him has already been writen, claimed or invented. The most we can do here is recycle. Even if we might imagine we are being smartly inventive. In the end, we must either believe him or not. In both cases, our own lives will go on to wherever they might be bound.
Rob
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Thank-you, Slobodon. That was an excellent read about an amazing artist in his own right.
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I would stake somebody else's ranch on this: that dedication simply can't exist today, in a digital lightroom.
Why not? Because wet was visceral, organic, and digital never is. I know both worlds well enough, the former even more than the latter.
What's the difference? Simply that with digital you just can go on and on and on until you eventually hit something - it's essentially a mechanical continuum; with wet, you hit it on the first test print in the sense that from the look of that, you just knew in your gut where you could take it and why.
Maybe some will like to claim this as a photographer's photographic lie. So be it.
Rob C
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Thanks to all who enjoyed the Voja Mitrovic story. It also sheds a different light on the stance, often expressed in forums here as well, that you are not a real photographer if you do not print your own prints.
Coincidentally, my own uncle left Belgrade to work as a photographer in Stockholm, Sweden, in the late sixties. My first camera came from him (Rollei 35), as well as my first Hasselblad (500C).
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That's an awesome article Slobodon. Very nice for you to have that "countryman" association, as well. His story is all too real, and it reminds me of the "Wrecking Crew" and Tommy Tedesco, who did the music for many of the popular bands and TV shows and movies and never got any credit for their work, until there was a documentary about it.
Same thing with Muscle Shoals.
It does make sense that the working craftsman, artist, musician (et al) would develop the best skills over years and years of putting out great work.
It is and has long been a tradition that technicians do the finish work of artists. Dale Chihuly is a perfect example of a contemporary artist who has competent technicians do the work. He is fully capable but chooses to "collaborate" with his crew.
Vitrovic's work was in every sense a collaboration, but I imagine he prided himself on being the best at what he did and was happy to have the work, as in ( "good work if you can get it").
It was a different time, a different era and a time of specialists whose reputation hung on their exceptional abilities to produce quality.
To be honest, I believe that how an artist produces their work is a personal matter. To become as great a printer as Voja Mitrovic, HCB might not have ever taken any pictures, it would have been so demanding to get that good at it, back in that time frame. Thank goodness Mitrovic was there for all of that.
Excellent story, appreciate the link.
Mark
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1. It was a different time, a different era and a time of specialists whose reputation hung on their exceptional abilities to produce quality.
2. To be honest, I believe that how an artist produces their work is a personal matter. To become as great a printer as Voja Mitrovic, HCB might not have ever taken any pictures, it would have been so demanding to get that good at it, back in that time frame. Thank goodness Mitrovic was there for all of that.
Excellent story, appreciate the link.
Mark
1. Yep.
2. Four to five years, full-time, in your specialty is enough: then, as with the shooting, you know if you do or do not have it.
I remember well that just before digital came into being, London had a host of processing labs, but still only a handful, of truly extraordinary black/white printers getting work from everywhere. The expertise showed. It's always the same, and for all I know, it's just the same with digital retouchers today. Seems also to be the deal with a few constant superstar shooter/retoucher teams in the fashion scene.
On the matter of a photographer (complete!?) having to do his own printing: in order to know how well or otherwise you are exposing, you need to experience the difficulties you may be producing for yourself in the darkroom. Handing those difficulties - and the resultant lack of best quality - to a professional printer solves nothing for you: it just avoids complete disaster which isn't good enough. It wasn't like with digital today, where near enough is quite often perfectly good enough - there's that much available information in a reasonable file that you have a fair amount of leeway. A film was a different beast.
Rob C
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Thanks to all who enjoyed the Voja Mitrovic story. It also sheds a different light on the stance, often expressed in forums here as well, that you are not a real photographer if you do not print your own prints.
I too found it fascinating.
It reminded me of an exhibit I saw many years ago of work by HCB (I can't remember exactly where or when). What struck me at the time was that many of the prints looked to me like ones intended for journalistic reproduction while many others were truly beautifully printed. Now I know who printed the good prints.
Thanks, Slobodan.
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On the matter of a photographer (complete!?) having to do his own printing: in order to know how well or otherwise you are exposing, you need to experience the difficulties you may be producing for yourself in the darkroom. Handing those difficulties - and the resultant lack of best quality - to a professional printer solves nothng for you: it just avoids complete disaster which isn't good enough. It wasn't like with digital today, where near enough is quite often perfectly good enough - there's that much available information in a reasonable file that you have a fair amount of leeway. A film was a different beast.
Rob C
Yip.
We ran a B+W Fine Art Print Darkroom back in the 70's in New Hampshire. Nice thing about New England is the water starts out cold, all you have to do is warm it up. Much easier to warm it up to consistency and hold it than to cool it down from hot ground water in Florida. Once we got Fred Picker's cold lights we were able to combat the dust issues, especially with anti-static equipment. Archival washing was a big thing for us and we did it in a big way. Most of the work was technical, for museum furniture reproductions, particularly so for the Oval Office Resolute desk - the first time it was photographed measured and drawn. Large B+W's were required that had to be super accurate. Man I hated spotting. And Magazines were so picky about things. The darkroom was a magical place but only if all the testing was correctly done and chemicals were right, etc. Remember Portriga Rapid? Ilford RC papers changed a lot for commercial stuff. A photographer in the 70's with a handle on darkroom techniques and the full compliment of equipment to back it up was a rarity. Many photographers did their own developing in the bathroom and hung film from the shower rod. Try to explain what it was like to run a picky picky B+W service back then, these days, and people just look at you funny like....
I know one thing for sure; those photos are still as crisp and sharp and perfect today as they were 40 years ago. As long as they didn't get thrown away. What to do with boxes and boxes of those archival prints now....
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Many photographers did their own developing in the bathroom and hung film from the shower rod.
Mine was in a wardrobe :-) But yeah, I have zero regrets for the inevitable dust traces, and my skin doesn't miss the chemicals at all.
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Dust? Nothing compares with the thrill of finding dust on a sensor.
Chemicals? All I ever had to do, apart from wear gloves with colour stuff, was wear clear nail varnish. That way, it wa obvious that I'd stopped smoking and had not induged in backsliding...
;-)
Rob