[PRCo] An open reply to Holland on photography

[Fred Schneider]

I'm continuing this openly because I had a similar discussion  
yesterday in Baltimore which appeared to intrigue a listener, or a  
least he was capable of not looking  bored.

Like many railfans and historians, I like old things.  And maybe this  
is also why I have not jumped 100% to digital yet.   And I'm the  
third generation photographer in the family.

You see, Jim, my father had an uncle in Marietta, Ohio who started  
out with a picture framing business and then went into photography.   
Uncle Gus started this far enough back in history that his enlarger  
added a new dimension to the word Solar.  In his case, a Solar  
enlarger was not a brand name but instead a horizontal beast built  
into the outside wall of the darkroom so that light from the sun was  
his printing light.  There were no 75 or 100 or 150 watt bulbs in  
condensing enlargers then and silver chloride contact printing papers  
were incredibly slow.  You can imagine that he couldn't write on the  
negative envelope instructions for reprinting: "15 second at f 8,  
burn sky additional 20 seconds, etc."  because the sun would be  
different each day.  This would be trial and error every time you  
printed the negative.   Eventually the family moved into a camera  
store business with the requisite photo processing business.  The  
processing work was eventually farmed out to a monster lab down in  
Parkersburg, WV and when cousin Harold became too old to continue in  
the 1960s, the business folded.

My dad was an electrical engineer by training and spent most of his  
life working as a mechanical engineer but he was never far from a  
camera.   He got his training working for Gus and Harold Wagner.  In  
fact he printed his own wedding pictures there.  After dad retired,  
he became a part-time self employed photographer working for a local  
general contractor.  His job was to photograph buildings under  
construction in a four state area.   He continued that until heart  
surgery forced him to closed the business.  Uncle Gus would have been  
amazed at where it went.  Dad was working with a Hassalblad and  
shooting color negative films and processing and printing them  
himself.   He had founded three or four camera clubs in his life, was  
running several portfolios for the Photographic Society of America,  
and loved teaching people how to work in a darkroom.   And (like Sam  
Lybarger), if he could make a machine for the darkroom rather than  
buy it, so much the better.

Well, back in 1952 I started by mixing developers, fixing baths, and  
other process chemistry used in a lab not by dumping pre-weighed  
powders or dissolved liquids in water but by measuring out this and  
that on an analytical balance.   Over time I acquired four different  
enlargers (I can work color or black and white if I choose to do so)  
from 35mm up to 5x7 negatives plus larger contact prints), I still  
like to use fiber base papers instead of plastic coated materials,  
and I built a house without basement windows so I could have an 14 x  
36 foot darkroom.

Jim ... and the rest of you who read this far ... does this explain  
why I have not involved myself deeply into digital yet?

On the other hand, I am astonished that the color balance of some of  
the digital printing processes from color transparencies is better  
than anything I've ever seen in my lifetime except for possibly dye  
transfer prints, and I'm not even sure about that.   A local lab is  
working by digitizing color negatives or slides ... going through  
photo shop if necessary to retouch them ... and then printing on  
Agfa's chemical process ... and the results beat anything I've seen  
before.  You can see some of those Pittsburgh pictures on the walls  
at PTM.   (Didn't think I could get it back on track did you?)  So I  
have not ruled out the process.  I'm just old and stubborn.

fws