On 29 Jul 2004, at 19:25, Mike Russell wrote:
if this was happening with film, you'd just - that the guy doesn't know what he's doing' rather than concluding the technology itself was flawed.
Yep. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard of agencies 'testing digital' by getting one of their usual film based photographers renting a digital camera for a day and 'trying it out'.I've also lost count of the number of calls we've received asking for advice in such circumstances.
Pro-File, of which I was a one time protagonist was an attempt to stave this off, but unfortunately it foundered. We tried too address too much in an industry that was developing too quickly - in short the goalposts kept moving. If we'd just kept to our initial idea which was to offer a printer validation service, allied to a bit of basic training that guaranteed photographers would supply reproducible files we might have succeeded.
Mike put in time over and above the call of duty on ProFile. It stopped at the time for many reasons , not the least of which was the lack of support from its proposed audience. BTW , the original idea proposed to the AOP council was that of an accreditation scheme , something that would have been easier to set up and administer than a monitoring scheme. This route was chosen because of the majority of the AOP councils view at the time on 'qualifications' ( just don't ask,okay ! ).
I'm not a member of any industry body, and I never found any real need for one until now. But now it appears that the majority of photographers are adopting digital capture rather than, as until now bad mouthing it, the time must be right for AoP at least to address the issue.
The DIG group of the AOP has been in turn been ignored , stifled , misquoted , had it's (IDEA) awards withdrawn, been asked to provide miracles in providing training to a generally non receptive audience for nothing and almost died a long and painful death by a thousand cuts.
I'm sure someone on the council of AoP must subscribe this list (although suddenly I tremble and realise there's a possibility nobody does ;-) Could they perhaps summarise here how the association representing some of the world's leading photographers views the situation?
As you know Mike , I'm not from Council any more ( thank whatever God you acknowledge for small mercies ) , but I can perhaps shed a little light on this . From my perspective , there are more smudgers in the AOP who are being driven towards digital ( either by their clients or out of the shear panic resulting from falling revenues) than there are those who see the intrinsic benefits of the technology. The AOP sees the need for training , but is still addressing it by voluntary workshops or sponsor led events. I've been talking with them about the provision of training on a different level , but we have to take a reality check here.
Serious training would cost serious money. As anybody on this list who works in this area will know , photographers have very deep pockets but very short arms when it comes to something that isn't matt black or doesn' t make interesting beeps when you press its buttons. In short , they want the knowledge for nowt , and they want it to be easy. The AOP forum as many others sometimes turns in to a " I can't be bothered to look in Yellow Pages " list.
And while I'm on a rant , let's look at the Standards thing. Mike knows all about this one. It's an easier path to take if you say "I'm digital photographer , so I'll set standards to suit my workflow and make the rest of the industry fit in", and adopt the same standards for training.
From the start, the DIG group realised that it wouldn't be the smudgers setting the rules. So we talked with the pre press guys , the press people and the advertising industry. And we came up with the Code of Practice for digital file supply ( many years ago ) . Believe it or not , this is know being increasingly used not just as a standard for file supply , but also as the basis for a number of forthcoming documents on workflow and standards.
This contact with industry made it perfectly clear that not only would we need to address standards , but that we would also have to look at how relevant the predominately RGB ProFile scheme would fit into a CMYK world. (This led to some passionate debates within the group that are only know being resolved).
With the fragmentation of the original working group , it was left for the individuals to press on with their own areas of concern. For my part , I decided to carry on on the digital workflow path on the voluntary side while still making my main living from photography ( by the nature of our involvement we do some consultancy and training, but on a non proprietary basis). This path made it possible to work with many parts of the industry on standards on an open basis ( we aren't resellers of hardware or software so we have no axe to grind in those areas).
Sorry to those of you who have heard all of this already , but as a result of the above , wearing both our company's hat and that of the Digital Imaging Group of the AOP, I've been able to put the photographers view forward at many industry events , and more importantly been privileged to join several committees. The Pic4Press initiative is one that will probably be the most important step forward right now in terms of standards . It will define a target CMYK space for file supply , and just as importantly , provide documentation on best practice as agreed by a full committee of industry representatives from photographer through to press. This scheme aims to be live from November this year. At present we're both building and evaluating profiles from several sources and working on the documentation.
We're also working with the Institute of Quality Assurance on producing a ( lengthier !) document on digital workflow that aims to embrace not just the image to press route , but also such areas as libraries, minilabs etc. I've promised to forward the draft copy of this to several members of this list . Unfortunately it's still at the camel stage and needs some work doing before it even begins to vaguely resemble a horse.
We're also regular attendees at DigitalAdLab and have worked with them on an extension to the excellent Bridges guides on their website.
We've also worked with a government body that may have the ability to help finance training of photographers in the future ( fingers crossed) .
So , to sum up for know ( client due) , the whole standards thing is being addressed as best we can at present ( because there's a family to feed , as unpaid DIG/AOP representatives there are only so many hours in the day).
But the standards issue will only be fully resolved when a larger part of the photographic industry take a greater responsibility and awareness for their part of the game in relationship to the industry as a whole, especially bin the areas of training and standards. And at risk of another drubbing , some of the ProDig posts don't always reassure in this area :-) .
Jorge Parra wrote
The quest for standards is still far from reaching formal agreements,
Sorry to disagree Jorge , but we're not that far away here in the UK.
but there are lots of people working on it.
True!.
On 29 Jul 2004, at 20:48, Francis Newman wrote:
Mike
Join the AOP and ask them.
Or propose joining the AOP and ask them first.
Francis , I know you mean well , but don't go there <BG>
Mikes views on the AOP are well known to some of us , and let's just say they are not without cause.
BTW, for those of you who don't know Mike Russell, he has been in the digital photography business longer than just about all of us , and has been an evangelist from the start.He;s done far more than his fair share of voluntary work in this area. He runs a very tightly controlled workflow and doesn't do "just good enough" , he only does excellent .So I for one sympathise heavily with his comments.
On a slightly different note......given the present state of affairs,,,,anybody up for a new organisation representing digital photography?
Whadya think?
Regards,
Bob Marchant (Present chair of the Digital Imaging Group of the AOP...only because nobody else wants the job)
=============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
