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Rambling With Resnick
"Didja hear about Minox?" I tried to get a rumor started among the photographic press attending PhotoPlus Expo at the Jacob Javits Center in New York last month. "They're bringing their miniature design to a whole new format!" I laid it on thick, and had some otherwise bright individuals going for at least 30 seconds. "They're introducing the world's smallest 8x10 camera! It's pocket sized!" A quizzical look followed that line, until "of course, your pocket better be pretty damn big..."
It's been that kind of a year.
First came the summer bombshell from Hasselblad that they were unveiling a 35mm (gasp!) camera after over half a century producing the most well respected line of medium format cameras on and off earth (they brought several H'Blads to the Moon). Then Contax showed its first 645 AF model. Then Ilford, a stalwart provider of fine black & white film for decades, has introduced a line of color print film. A large format Minox didn't seem terribly absurd.
The theme of the show was the blurring of lines. Between formats, color and black and white, digital and traditional. Cone Editions offered beautiful, long lasting digital prints on fine-art paper (looked like watercolor) that were in fact made on an Iris digital printer, using some proprietary improvements that made the prints rival optical unless looked at with a 8x loupe. Luminos introduced a line of digital print media. Photo shoots that were staged at the show were being posted almost live over the Internet to viewers worldwide.
For the professional photographer (that's who the show is geared towards), digital photography is very much a reality. But what effect do the events at Javits have on hobbyists and other more casual users? The answer can be found in a comment from a well-known distributor of traditional black & white paper: "Digital media may only have permanence for 2-5 years now, but new inks and papers will be introduced in six to nine months that will rival photographic paper in image permanence."
How long will these new papers last? I am told that the next generation of photo-quality inkjet media--due out the middle of next year--will last 60-80 years without fading under normal storage conditions--which indeed rivals archivally processed photographic paper. In fact, 60 year permanence may already exist: Henry Wilhelm, one of the top image permanence researchers in the world, is currently testing a number of digital output media including the inks and papers used by the high-end printer, Cone Editions, to see if they will last as long as 100 years without fading. With images produced by affordable (read: under $300) inkjet printers rivalling photographic quality and fooling the experts, be prepared: the digital darkroom is becoming more and more appealing. The arrival of archival imaging will likely excellerate the abandonment of the optical/chemical darkroom.
Archival digital prints with photographic quality. Coming within a year. Hmmm. Are we ready for the next paradigm shift?
About the author: Mason Resnick, the editor and publisher of Black & White World, is investing in large-pocketed photo vests. bwworld@mindspring.com.