A couple of days ago an APUG friend told me about a thread over there where Sean was dipping his toe into the concept of 'inclusion'. That discussion hasn't gone as far as I might have wished, but not for lack of trying by some of the most creative members of the hybrid community, especially Katharine Thayer. Her committment to the dynamic art that always has been photography shines like a beacon. She's never written better. Thank you, KT. I hope you and others can convince the analog-box folks that photography cannot be dissected and displayed on different floors of the museum. The alternative process discussions are sadly hollow without the ability to discuss the interrelationship between the wet materials and the negative; increasingly a digital negative.

This brings me to a personal ironic aha! I had yesterday. As much as I deplore fundamentalism (religious and political as well as artistic) I owe the fundamentalists at APUG a big debt of gratitude. They are the reason I bought my now-beloved Pentax K10. Originally, I had planned to make color-separation negatives from scanned color transparencies. I never would have believed that inserting a digital negative into a process that is wholly analog (none of my film cameras even use batteries and my exposure meter is a 30-year old anolog model!) would bring my soul as a photographer into question. Well, you know how it goes in the fundy churches. You tell a kid she can't listen to rock music or she'll go to hell, she's as likely to join a punk rock band as stay in that church. In my prime I couldn't carry around a camera bigger than 5x7 and baby, I'm no longer in my prime. ULF's are fine and dandy for some. Me, I'll just say: Thank the gods (and APUG) for my Pentax.

Also, a couple of days ago I sent a rather strident pm to Sean and jd. I would like to publicly apologize for that. We each do what we do and believe what we believe. It's undoubtedly the best way, which is good, because it seems to be an immutable part of human nature.

d

Well, gee, I'm not sure I deserve that, but thanks for the thanks. I've actually been wishing I'd stayed out of it entirely.

Edit: I said more about this, but in the shower I decided my post took a wrong tone, so I deleted the rest and will try to better express what I mean at another time. Thanks for your patience, and let's keep talking.

kt

That thread and a kind PM exchange with Sean clarified a great deal for me as well about both APUG and hybridphoto. Previously I'd gotten the impression like some others that this place was a kind of ghetto where APUG sent its unwanted topics.

I'm thinking of them both differently now.

That thread and a kind PM exchange with Sean clarified a great deal for me as well about both APUG and hybridphoto. Previously I'd gotten the impression like some others that this place was a kind of ghetto where APUG sent its unwanted topics.

Paul, I think that impression is strengthened by the practice on APUG to suggest, any time ANY digital topic comes up, that the topic should be brought to hybrid because that's where digital discussions belong.

After participating in that thread, I was persuaded that Sean really does mean for hybrid to be about hybrid processes and not just a place to dump digital topics that crop up on APUG, and was reassured. But after reflecting on it, I don't see that most people understand the distinction (for example someone on that thread asked me if I object to discussion of digital negatives on hybridphoto --!!-- which shows that he has no understanding whatever of what hybrid means) and I'm not sure the assurances and the sudden appearance of a mission statement to the effect that hybridphoto is about processes that use both traditional and digital methods make any practical difference; perceptions make hybridphoto whatever it has become or will become.

I'm not sure that it's even agreed among us here, whether we're about hybrid processes or whether this is a site for all things digital, APUG's de facto digital site. If many people here think that, and if everyone at APUG thinks that, then that's what it will be.
Katharine

it never crossed my mind that this site was to be a site for all things digital.

It was to be about hybrid processes.

I must agree however, if i have a series digital question i might look for somewhere here on this site to talk with as i respect their body of knowledge.

There are lots of digital sites available , but my experience is they are full of point and shoot types even with the use of higher end cameras; however, this my be a serious lack of understanding on my part.

on the flip side, would this site be for all things analog?

The digital questions we get on APUG that we usually recommend hybridphoto.com for tend to be about scanning film or prints. Starting with film and bringing it into the digital domain is hybrid. Sometimes there have been questions about making alt-process prints from digital originals, and that seems like fair territory for the hybrid site. The intention, as I understand it, was to make this site open to all discussions that involved the combination of traditional and digital methods.

If someone starts a thread of the "which DSLR should I buy?" sort, which we don't get too often, we don't usually send them to the hybrid site. We just delete the thread.

One question is--what is "too digital" for this group? I get the sense that some people find, say, scanning a color negative or transparency and printing it using LightJet or inkjet might fall into the "too digital" category (even though it starts from film, and in the case of LightJet ends with a C-print, and falls within the mission statement of the site), and what they really want is an alt-process forum that is open to digital and conventional techniques, and excludes more routine combinations of film and digital. My concern is that perhaps that emphasis on alternative processes is scaring off some potential participants.

Is there some reason these different kinds of hybrid discussions can't happen in the same place? Of course no one will be interested in everything that is discussed, but there should be some overlap, and it might not be a bad thing for someone who comes to hybridphoto.com to learn about making inkjet prints from scanned color transparencies to learn also that they can use the same printer to make digital negatives and alt-process prints.

David, I find this a fascinating observation, because one of the more vocal 'digital capture sucks 24/7' posters over on APUG actually has this as his workflow, or at least that is my understanding. That is: shoot film, scan, then print a chemical print exposed digitally with a laser (Lightjet). That always tickled my funnybone when some of the threads 'over there' would descend into an F5 whirlwind of digital denunciation.

My sense is that most of the people 'over here' are doing digital as a means to making alt process or traditional SG prints. To my way of thinking, the digital negative has been one of the greatest boons to the alt-process world since its revival in the 1960's.

I can now teach workshops and ask the students to bring nothing more than a digital file to make into a negative. We can spend more time printing and less time talking about how to expose and develop a negative for a good palladium print. They come away with a lot more successful prints than back when one of the class requirements was 'Bring negatives that are contrasty and are big enough to contact print' which automatically excluded the vast majority of photographers shooting small cameras.

And I see that as a niche that is well served by this site. There is really no other home on the web where this type of information is shared. I always felt like I was sneaking a beer behind the shed when I posted on the APUG 'Gray Area' subforum. Those discussions were clearly not welcome by some of the more vocal APUG participants. On the other hand, I feel like I can come here and have a tasty beer without my teetotaling Aunt running to the phone to call my parents.

I think this place is fine. Everyone knows the best music is played in joints you are not supposed to go to.



One question is--what is "too digital" for this group? I get the sense that some people find, say, scanning a color negative or transparency and printing it using LightJet or inkjet might fall into the "too digital" category (even though it starts from film, and in the case of LightJet ends with a C-print, and falls within the mission statement of the site), and what they really want is an alt-process forum that is open to digital and conventional techniques, and excludes more routine combinations of film and digital. My concern is that perhaps that emphasis on alternative processes is scaring off some potential participants.

One question is--what is "too digital" for this group? I get the sense that some people find, say, scanning a color negative or transparency and printing it using LightJet or inkjet might fall into the "too digital" category (even though it starts from film, and in the case of LightJet ends with a C-print, and falls within the mission statement of the site), and what they really want is an alt-process forum that is open to digital and conventional techniques, and excludes more routine combinations of film and digital. My concern is that perhaps that emphasis on alternative processes is scaring off some potential participants.

Is there some reason these different kinds of hybrid discussions can't happen in the same place? Of course no one will be interested in everything that is discussed, but there should be some overlap, and it might not be a bad thing for someone who comes to hybridphoto.com to learn about making inkjet prints from scanned color transparencies to learn also that they can use the same printer to make digital negatives and alt-process prints.

Odd, that's the same question someone on APUG asked me: how much percentage of digital is "too digital"? I thought I answered the question there, but I'll answer it again. It's not a matter of percentage of digital, but whether something is hybrid or not. A digital image from a digital camera, scanned directly to the gallery, is not hybrid. A digital image that's printed to inkjet or any of the other digital printing machines, is not hybrid.

The processes you describe above, that all start with with film, are all hybrid, and of course can all be accommodated in different places on this site. I've already said several times that I applaud the organization of the site that makes that possible, that different constituencies can have our own discussions here without getting in each other's way. I have never argued, or desired, the hybrid site to be only for alternative processes.

I do think the different constituencies may have somewhat different goals and philosophies, but as long as the organization of the site allows us to coexist, there's no reason for that to be a particular problem.

As to suggestions that topics be taken from APUG to hybrid, the instances I was thinking of weren't instances where a moderator had made the suggestion, but where other members have suggested, when digital topics come up, "Take it to hybrid."

on the flip side, would this site be for all things analog?

What would be the point of that? That's what APUG is for.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul_C
on the flip side, would this site be for all things analog?


What would be the point of that? That's what APUG is for.

Another interpretation of Paul's question could be, "are all issues analog allowable on hybrid?" To that question I would answer a resounding "Yes!" One does not exclude the other, nor is one a subset of the other. They are the whole. They are photography.

But as I think David reminded us when we were discussing the question "what is hybrid" a year ago or so, there needs to be a unifying principle that defines a site. The unifying principle here is that we serve neither the "all analog" or the "all digital" constituencies, which are served adequately elsewhere, but that we fill the place where the two intersect; that's our niche.

Clay said it very well: there is no other place where digital negatives are a regular topic of discussion. This is the place. If the presence of alternative process folks here "scares off" potential participants who use other kinds of hybrid processes, I don't know what we can do about that. I don't think anyone is actively discouraging them.
kt

If the presence of alternative process folks here "scares off" potential participants who use other kinds of hybrid processes, I don't know what we can do about that. I don't think anyone is actively discouraging them.
kt

I don't think it is the presence of alternative processes that might intimidate some hybrid users who start with a film original to produce an inkjet print or who start with a digital original to produce a traditional print, but rather these kinds of statements--


And then, when considering whether I'm "hybrid" or not, I guess I have some trouble equating a tricolor gum or carbon print from a color slide, intermediate color separations created digitally, to an inkjet print output from a scanned color slide. To me, they aren't even in the same universe. To lump them together as "hybrid" as if they were equivalent things makes very little sense to me. I'm a gum printer. Who sometimes uses digital negatives for my gum prints. I used to think that's what "hybrid" meant. (My ignorance is exacerbated by the fact that I have the digital negative forum bookmarked, and that's the only forum I usually look at on hybrid photo). But now that I understand what all is being included in the meaning of hybrid, I don't think I would care to identify myself as a "hybrid" printer, even some of the time.

from this thread--

http://www.hybridphoto.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2671&postcount=48

If I made inkjet prints (and I don't), I think I might find this kind of statement unwelcoming, even if it were not intended to be so, and even if it did not reflect any policy of the site.

I promised to take some time to reflect and then to respond in more depth to Denise's gracious post that started this thread.

It's true that I have never understood the logic that says there's something fundamentally different between those alternative process printers who use an intermediate digital negative in an otherwise analog process, and those who don't. However, though I don't understand it, I accept it, and my posts at APUG that occasioned this thread shouldn't be interpreted as arguing against that policy of separation. I'm not standing outside the gates of APUG banging on the door demanding to be let back in, even though personally I might believe that APUG has been weakened rather than strengthened by its exclusion of this group of alternative process printers. That battle was lost a long time ago, and nothing I've said in the last few days should be interpreted as a plea to reconsider that decision; that's a lost cause, as far as I'm concerned.

In the meantime, I've thought a lot about why I'm not comfortable being the standard-bearer for the "there should be no distinctions; it's all photography" camp. In some ways I share that philosophy, obviously, but in some ways I don't. I do make distinctions, and the distinctions are meaningful to me. How the print is made, the nature of the object itself, matters to me, for example. It's true that I don't care what path I take to get to that print: my negative can be digital, analog, a drawn or painted negative, a photocopy, a photogram, I don't care. So as far as generating a negative to make a gum print from, I make no distinctions. But I do make distinctions when it comes to the final product. For me, only a gum print will do. But that doesn't mean that as far as I'm concerned, gum prints (or alternative process prints of any kind) are the only legitimate form of photographic print, only that it's what I prefer, and what I do.

And the slogan "I am a photographer, period" that seems to have been adopted by some as a way of emphasizing that there should be no distinction between digital and analog methods, doesn't fit well in my mouth either, but not because I think there should be a distinction between whether one uses film or digital to record the image. My discomfort arises because I've never considered myself a photographer, of any stripe. I would never answer the question "what do you do?" by saying "I'm a photographer;" I simply don't identify myself that way. I'm a gum printer; that's what I do, and everything I do in the way of technique -- all the different photographic and nonphotographic ways I have of making negatives, as well as the various conventional and unconventional printing techniques I use-- are simply solutions to different problems on the way to producing a particular print I have in mind. I'm not sure I would call a lot of what I do "photography;" much of it is more aligned with painting or printmaking, to my mind.

So, as I said, though I was somewhat uncomfortable being described in a way that didn't seem to fit me and accepting praise under that guise, I know that the post was generated out of spontaneous goodwill and a good heart and a sense of community, and I appreciate that; thanks. We are a community, even though our goals and philosophies and methods are necessarily diverse.

If I made inkjet prints (and I don't), I think I might find this kind of statement unwelcoming, even if it were not intended to be so, and even if it did not reflect any policy of the site.

Interesting. That was a long time ago, when I was brand new on the site and when (as was evident from the quote) I was first presented with the idea that hybrid encompassed more than just digital negatives. I was surprised by the information, obviously. One could fault my ignorance; at any rate I understand the scope of hybrid much better now.

But your point is well taken, and in fact I've been maybe even overcareful lately to delete or edit expressions that could be interpreted as divisive. If you want to delete that post, feel free.

Katharine

Thanks for your replies, Katharine. I think that makes things much clearer. I'm not a moderator on this site (just on APUG), so I can't delete anything here, but you could contact JDC, and he could take care of it.

Thanks for your replies, Katharine. I think that makes things much clearer. I'm not a moderator on this site (just on APUG), so I can't delete anything here, but you could contact JDC, and he could take care of it.

Well... I wasn't saying that I personally thought it should be removed, only that if someone in charge here thought it was so offensive it should be removed, they should remove it and I wouldn't be upset about it, since it was a blurt of surprise rather than a considered thought.

[QUOTE=clay;5592]
My sense is that most of the people 'over here' are doing digital as a means to making alt process or traditional SG prints. To my way of thinking, the digital negative has been one of the greatest boons to the alt-process world since its revival in the 1960's.

I can now teach workshops and ask the students to bring nothing more than a digital file to make into a negative. We can spend more time printing and less time talking about how to expose and develop a negative for a good palladium print. They come away with a lot more successful prints than back when one of the class requirements was 'Bring negatives that are contrasty and are big enough to contact print' which automatically excluded the vast majority of photographers shooting small cameras.

/QUOTE]

There is no question but that the digital negative has been a great boon to alternative processes. I just finished a two day carbon workshop with a student who brought four prepared image files from scanned Hasselblad negatives. I looked at the files and then printed them out as digital negatives. The student wound up taking away from the workshop 8-10 high quality carbon prints. When I did carbon workshops in the past with in-camera negatives this level of productivity would have been inconceivable because every one of the negatives would have had to be individually tested for contrast and exposure time. Back then getting even one high quality print was quite challenging since the minimum time for doing a test print is on the order of 3-4 hours given the numerous drying stages in the process.

I don't know why everyone comes to this site, but it is the one site on the net where the subject of digital negatives can be discussed with people who know a lot about the subject, many of whom are also very accomplished alternative printers, and were very accomplished printers before the digital negative.

If others use the site for a work flow that involves nothing more than scanning a color transparency and having a commercial lab make the print, or make a print with an inkjet printer, that is perfectly valid as well.

I do believe that some people are turned off to the site by the very high level of exchange that takes place here, especially as that regards the production of digital negatives. It might be useful to have on the site an article with some type of over view of the various methods for making digital negatives.

Sandy king

I am a silver printer, and i have dabbled in platinum and tri colour ultrastable prints.
I am working on a method of separating large film on my Lambda RGB laser printer and then multiple printing.

I begged John and Sean to create this site over 3 years ago because I am a firm believer of hybrid methods to get to an end.
The strength of this site will be obvious in the next few years as I can see some very serious workers in other end output on this site and hopefully over the next couple of years work out some complicated bugs and or workflow issues with a digital device that five years ago would not be possible.

I have seen Sandys observation about digital negs for workshops , firsthand and he is right, this new blending of technologys will make it much more desirable to make permanent prints and should benifit all of us hanging on to our preferred processes .

Fibre silver prints tri toned off a digital slr was a pipe dream five years ago, I know because I dreamed about it for years, as I saw my traditional film business drop to a trickle.
Now I can see *very short period of time* a major photo school placing the devices I use, in their schools and opening up the wet darkrooms again.

The strength of this site is the fact that it is a sister/brother site of APUG where those of us who work in various processes can relay information, whithout being jumped on due to the stringint policeys that Sean has decided for his first site.*btw I respect his decision*.

As Callow and Sean pointed out we are close to the 1000 member point and that is the critical mass needed to make the site exciting.

I will say this though,,, I would like to eliminate the Lounge and any SoapBox type of area on this site as I think these two areas will cause a heap of trouble.....Keep the discussions totally photographic and welcoming to new ideas and the people will come and make this a very good knowledge based site.
Not that APUG is not good for info, as I am on that site every day, but the pissing contests are really tiresome some times there and on Large Format which is a real turnoff..

I will say this though,,, I would like to eliminate the Lounge and any SoapBox type of area on this site as I think these two areas will cause a heap of trouble.....Keep the discussions totally photographic and welcoming to new ideas and the people will come and make this a very good knowledge based site.
Not that APUG is not good for info, as I am on that site every day, but the pissing contests are really tiresome some times there and on Large Format which is a real turnoff..
Bob,
I'm in total agreeement about dropping the Lounge here.

Don Bryant