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01-15-2016, 03:09 AM   #76
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QuoteOriginally posted by revdocjim Quote
As I was growing up I was never impressed with my dad's photos, even though he took a lot. They tended to be group photos on specific occasions and photos related to his work. But after he died I began digitizing his older stuff and discovered some real treasures. Seven years before I was born my parents moved from the U.S. to Japan as missionaries. What I've discovered is that in the first 10 years or so his photos of Japan were really good. I can only guess that it was his curiosity and fascination with encountering a new culture, a new society and a new people. By the time I was grown up he had lived in Japan long enough to get used to it so his photographic creativity suffered. I only wish I could have gone thru his older stuff while he was still alive. Here are a few of my favorites.
Amazing series of beautiful photos! I love the way your narrative comments supplement the images. I was happily clicking on 'next', enjoying each image immensely, and when the last one came I really wished the show never stopped thanks for sharing !

01-15-2016, 05:26 AM   #77
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Indeed some great pictures there. Some of the winter scenes look quite picturesque and calm, but when you try to imagine them in colour, I think they would be less so. Being able to see what a good picture would look like in black and white is a skill in itself.
01-15-2016, 06:18 AM - 2 Likes   #78
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QuoteOriginally posted by Johnny Rod Quote
Indeed some great pictures there. Some of the winter scenes look quite picturesque and calm, but when you try to imagine them in colour, I think they would be less so. Being able to see what a good picture would look like in black and white is a skill in itself.
Nothing beats color!

01-15-2016, 08:05 AM   #79
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@revdocjim: Thank you, thank you for those pictures! Most of them stunning, most of them so at many levels. You don't mention how much manipulation you may have done during scanning, but they are all virtually perfect in exposure, levels, etc.

You may wish to look into www.fotolibra.com . A British stock photo agency, they have an option for historical photos. Big into street scenes. No charge for uploading or storage of pre-1970? pictures.

---------- Post added 01-15-16 at 09:10 AM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by dsmithhfx Quote
Nothing beats color!
Couldn't disagree more!

Color has it's place, but monochrome and color images trigger different emotional levels in our brains. Color conveys the message of being in the present. B&W, in the past. That's regardless of subject matter which may indicate the time of the photograph. B&W is far superior when the image is about patterns, contrast, light and dark. It removes the clutter of color.

Sometimes a color image is best.................used to select and "Make B&W."

---------- Post added 01-15-16 at 09:14 AM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by dsmithhfx Quote
Nothing beats color!
Couldn't disagree more!

Color has it's place, but monochrome and color images trigger different emotional levels in our brains. Color conveys the message of being in the present. B&W, in the past. That's regardless of subject matter which may indicate the time of the photograph. B&W is far superior when the image is about patterns, contrast, light and dark. It removes the clutter of color.

Sometimes a color image is best.................used to select and "Make B&W."

01-15-2016, 08:52 AM   #80
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It was a joke. Never mind.
01-15-2016, 07:03 PM   #81
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Though I prefer to process my own conventional black and white film at home,
most users prefer color. C-41 processing is still widely available and inexpensive.

AFAIK the only commonly available C-41 black and white film left is Ilford XP2.
For chromogenic BW films to look their best they should be printed on BW paper.
For this one must seek out a specialist processor, and pay significantly more.

Color just makes more sense for most casual film users.

Chris
01-15-2016, 08:05 PM   #82
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Oopsie!



01-15-2016, 11:07 PM   #83
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As I delved into my dad's photos and found myself captivated it got me to thinking. It also turned me on to doing more monochrome work myself. I've more or less reached the conclusion that one of the attractions is the absence of information. Somehow, when our minds that are conditioned to seeing in color encounter the absence of color I think it subconsciously stimulates the viewer's imagination. It creates a certain distance between present experienced reality and the captured image, leaving the viewer to wonder about and imagine what it must have been like.

Shooting in B&W has helped me to see and compose more in terms of light than colors. Rich color contrasts can be beautiful in color photos but disappear in B&W. But light contrasts are what make monochrome photos stand out, and actually are a fundamental component to all photos.
01-16-2016, 01:39 AM   #84
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I love both color and b&w ... composing is vastly different for each. Each has a place. Some shots just don't work in color and vice versa. Shoot.
01-16-2016, 04:51 AM   #85
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Nostalgia: where sepia toning and hand-tinting evoked the 19th C., so black and white (and film in general, and digital film mimicry) recall the 20th.

Last edited by dsmithhfx; 01-16-2016 at 05:48 AM.
01-16-2016, 10:06 AM   #86
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QuoteOriginally posted by dsmithhfx Quote
It was a joke. Never mind.
Ah, the famous lost the satire on the internet thread syndrome. OK! Thanks.
01-16-2016, 05:27 PM   #87
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QuoteOriginally posted by paulvzo Quote
Ah, the famous lost the satire on the internet thread syndrome. OK! Thanks.

Not to mention the famous "lost the OP by changing the subject of the internet thread syndrome"...

Chris
01-16-2016, 07:27 PM   #88
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QuoteOriginally posted by Alex645 Quote
The gimmick of the One Hour photo did create an illusion that it was all technological automation, but in reality Dr. Frome and Noritsu created a franchise of custom minilabs, and the smart consumers understood that the local franchise was only as good as the employees and management that ran it. I spent many hours back in the 80's educating photographers what they did wrong or what they could do to improve their results.
Maybe you can confirm for me in testing I conducted with my local Noritsu minilab scanner service what options were available. They tended to blow out the highlights and had no control over "levels" to darken the image. The lady working it said she can only turn auto enhance on or off. Turning auto enhance off tended to lessen sharpening, contrast and levels but not by much.
01-16-2016, 10:38 PM   #89
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Nah..you haven't lost me yet..although a few of the side-roads have left me dizzy and disoriented. I have gotten a few good ideas from the answers provided. I am gonna try them out and see where my future of photography lies. I did enjoy the way my K-1000 made me slow down and see the world around me. I am too easily absorbed into the hectic flow of daily life...taking pictures (especially with an all-manual camera) makes me stop and see the small things I usually miss. I am grateful for all your input and will continue to check in to see where the thread wanders from here.
01-16-2016, 10:54 PM   #90
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QuoteOriginally posted by LesDMess Quote
Maybe you can confirm for me in testing I conducted with my local Noritsu minilab scanner service what options were available. They tended to blow out the highlights and had no control over "levels" to darken the image. The lady working it said she can only turn auto enhance on or off. Turning auto enhance off tended to lessen sharpening, contrast and levels but not by much.
I am not familiar with the exact model scanner your local Noritsu minilab is using, but up against Kodak, Fujifilm, Agfa, Konishiroku, and Copal, Noritsu was the industry leader and I have a hard time believing that in 2016 the operator only has an auto enhance off or on option.

If they are like Costco and many minilabs that I've seen in the last 10 years, management doesn't care about the kind of custom quality you seek. It has been dumbed-down so that either the customer trusts the one-and-done auto enhance for ALL images, or if you've done PP on an image, you don't want their auto enhance to override your work, so then you tell them to turn auto enhance off.

All the while, there is a keyboard and video screen with 4 banks of keys for Cyan-Red, Magenta-Green, Yellow-Blue, and Density (what you're referring to as "levels"). Again, it's usually a management decision to either not adjust any of that or negligence for them to train the operator. All you can do as a consumer is to go from lab to lab until you find the one that cares or is competent.

My last stint as a minilab tech was at a Fox Photo. The parent company, Sears, was more interested in reducing waste and increasing efficiency. So I was discouraged from making image to image color and density corrections, because it is slower than just ripping through everything with auto. But half the time you're sitting around picking your nose, and I'd rather have some pride in my work, so I'd make corrections and turn out great prints for customers. After a couple weeks, people noticed and business picked up, but then other labs in the franchise start getting a bad rep because they refuse to make corrections....so what does corporate do? Stop making corrections!!! At that point, I knew it was a sign for me to move on with my life.

Now my curse is that I can make better corrections than just about any lab. It's not just me, it's thousands of color lab techs that were trained and then were replaced by automation. The same thing has happened in publishing with automated digital presses, but I'm old fashion so next month I'm going to fly 8,000 miles roundtrip to Winnipeg, Manitoba, home of Friesens, where they have real pressmen to work with me to do a real press check for color balance and ink density for black and white images. (I'm also a yearbook advisor now and we print about 2000 9x12" hard bound books 372-pages annually). Love the ManRoland German presses with Italian GardaGloss paper crafted by polite and caring Canadians. But I digress....

So, my goal with labs is that I find one that won't screw up the processing or scratch my film, let them do the low res base scans, and then from those 'proofs' I do it myself with my own film scanner for high res and Photoshop.
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