Little bits of History

NEWSLETTER for DECEMBER 1983

GERHARD BAKKER
When I was in Napier on a brief tour round the Hawkes Bay region, I was speaking to James White who has informed me that the Honors Committee in their wisdom, have declined the services of Gerhard Bakker in both of the ways they were offered.

To refresh your memory, Gerhard Bakker probably has more merits than any other living American Photographer, has for three decades been an instructor and Dean of Winona School of Photography and is a recognized authority on art appreciation, composition etc.

His critiques of the P.P. of A. loan collection are legendary and is probably the best authority on judging with the merit system that there is alive today.

We (Chromatek) offered Gerhard to the Association at No Charge, to lecture to the judges prior to them judging and also for him and Bob Haig who has been Chairman of Judging many times.... to view the judging and comment to James directly, as to if and when and where in their opinion, help was required.

James thanked me very much for both of these offers but they were declined as the N.Z.P.P.A.  does not need this sort of help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT IS A TRANS-PROOF
We've been gaily talking about transproofs in the last few Newsletters, assuming everybody would know what they are.

Let's assume you know nothing about it and explain what a transproof is.

A transproof is a 35mm transparency that has been made off your 120 colour negative and any of these three sizes, 2 1/14 square, 16 on, or 10 on.

It basically prints almost all of the negative, there is a little bit of bleed off with these and seeing the image is so jolly small in the 35mm, we work to as fine tolerances as we can.

The purpose of transproofs are to show them to your customer in place of ordinary 5 x 14 or premier proofs.  With transproofs you will be able to project them through a 35mm projector onto a screen and you will have real crisp beautiful images from which you can sell.  It will also mean, unless you order a set of proofs as well, that you will have to take the orders in the studio, as you will be unable to let your customers take them home.  So it may not work on every sitting.

The presentation that Jack Peterson put on, (Who was brought into NZ to introduce this form of selling) showed how he sold weddings and it looked like it went extremely well.

For those of you that make a feature of selling your previews, you should not sell your transproofs, as they will be able to take them to a chemist and have prints made from them.  However, there is nothing to stop you ordering an extra set of 5 x 14 prints at the time you place your customers order and sell them those.

You should find the results from transproofs, if you work them properly, so much better than showing from 5 x 14's and projecting through the Paxicope, that you could have a problem knowing what to do with all your money....

STAINS ON PRINTS... WHEN YOU MOUNT THEM
We have had a few people getting stains on prints after the prints have been mounted or exhibitexed.

This appears to be a problem that is associated with non-vacuum mounting presses and the time that is required to mount these prints.

Talking to Peter Clarke, who has a 20 x 30 seal press with the vacuum plate fitted, he tells me that prior to fitting the vacuum plate he used to get a lot of reject prints because of stains etc appearing on the surface of the print. However, since fitting the vacuum attachment, he has not had this at all yet, so he associates this to be a problem created by the heat and the length of time that the print is under the press.

Kodak, of course, say that once you place anything on the print or the print on anything, their responsibility has ended.  Ours is a little bit more realistic, in so much that if we have done anything wrong in the processing of the print then of course that's our problem.

It does appear these colour changes, spots and all of these other bits and pieces which happen during mounting or texturizing, is a problem concerned with mounting and not with the processing.

It does appear with a vacuum press, that it does pull all the moisture in and around the print, so that the steam that would normally be generated from moisture is no longer trapped in and around the print, but extracted out into the atmosphere via the vacuum press.  These are all theories and until we rind something more positive, is unfortunately the only thing that we can work with.

ADRIS APSE
I went out to the Airport last Tuesday 13th and saw Andy and his family arrive home from Chile.  All in one piece sporting, I suppose what could be called, a Spanish beard.  He seemed quite relieved to be back in New Zealand.  He told me he covered every inch of Chile, so we can really look forward to an interesting series of photographs at some stage.

"Stupid People should wear signs"

Stupid people should have to wear signs that just say, "I'm Stupid." That way you wouldn't rely on them, would you? You wouldn't ask them anything. It would be like, "Excuse me...oops, never mind. I didn't see your sign."

It's like before my wife and I moved. Our house was full of boxes and there was a U-Haul truck in our driveway. My friend comes over and says, "Hey, you moving?" "Nope. We just pack our stuff up once or twice a week to see how many boxes it takes. Here's your sign."

A couple of months ago I went fishing with a buddy of mine, we pulled his boat into the dock, I lifted up this big 'ol stringer of bass and this idiot on the dock yells, "Hey, y'all catch all them fish?" "Nope - Talked 'em into giving up. Here's your sign."

I was watching one of those animal shows on the Discovery Channel. There was a guy inventing a shark bite suit. And there's only one way to test it.
"Alright Jimmy, you got that shark suit on, it looks good.. They want you to jump into this pool of sharks, and you tell us if it hurts when they bite you." "Well, all right, but hold my sign. I don't wanna lose it".

Last time I had a flat tire, I pulled my truck into one of those side-of-the-road gas stations. The attendant walks out, looks at my truck, looks at me, and I SWEAR he said, "Tire go flat?" I couldn't resist. I said, "Nope. I was driving around and those other three just swelled right up on me. Here's your sign."

We were trying to sell our car about a year ago. A guy came over to the house and drove the car around for about 45 minutes. We get back to the house, he gets out of the car, reaches down and grabs the exhaust pipe, then goes, "Darn that's hot!" See? If he'd been wearing his sign, I could have stopped him.

I learned to drive an 18 wheeler in my days of adventure. Wouldn't ya know I misjudged the height of a bridge. The truck got stuck and I couldn't get it out no matter how I tried. I radioed in for help and eventually a local cop shows up to take the report. He went through his basic questioning. No problem. I thought for sure he was clear of needing a sign until he asked "So..is your truck stuck?" I couldn't help myself! I looked at him, looked back at the rig, then back to him and said, "No I'm delivering a bridge ...Here's your sign!"