[pure-silver] Re: Digital imaging is a sign of the times
- From: "Edward C. Zimmermann" <edz@xxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:43:02 +0100
Quoting Matthew Gaylen <mgaylen@xxxxxxx>:
> In terms of art and Fine Art, I don't think black and white wet photography
> has much hope of surviving in the mainstream too much longer.
Unless you have been living in a village in an undeveloped country B&W has
long been hardly "mainstream" but an aesthetic choice for the few. Most all
of the billions of photographs processed in central Europe each year are
colour. TVs are colour. Computer displays and even cellular phones are colour.
> The print you get as a result of hours and hours of painstaking work in the
> darkroom isn't generally perceived as valuable to mainstream consumers.
We now need to divide up the mainstream consumers into market segments..
The mainstream, for instance, in many markets demands highly corrected
and "beautiful" wedding portraits. Its either "painstaking" corrective
work with knives, dyes and brushes or "painstaking" corrective work with
digital models of knives, dyes, brushes in a war chest of image processing
tools. The means to an end is not relevant to that market but the result is.
In other areas of "commercial" photography the means is all that matters and
not really the results. I call this the "fine art silver gelatine" market.
Its not "mainstream" but given that there are galleries on some of the best
addresses in most major urban financial centers in Europe and North America
it can be hardly called "underground".
> Look at classical music, despite the fact that it costs $75 to see the
> Chicago Symphony and almost $50 to see the Champaign-Urbana Symphony their
> concert seasons are short and the number of people who participate is very
> small compared to the people who participate in pop music.
Pop music events are hardly about music but about "events"-- and to be more
acurate its spelled (following Reich) "s-e-x". The same divide between
what it is and what it is about can often be said of the symphony or opera
but for different segments of the population and, of course, for different
"causes". Here in Munich (a city with around 1.3 million) we have quite
a few symphonic orchestras, many theatres, operas (including a well visited
opera festival each summer that is typically well sold out to deep pocket
international "culture tourists" who tend to hit Munich alongside Salzburg
and Bayreuth) and a wide assortment of cultural events.
> There are 10-50 depending on market size, 10-50 pop music stations to ever
> one classical music station on the radio. There are many television channels
> devoted to pop music but none that I can think of devoted to classical music.
> The most classical music you're going to get on TV is an occasional program
> on PBS.
Pop music is a large market but there is more than just pop music to be found
when I turn the radio dial.. I don't know where you are living but the same
could be said in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York.. Sure not everywhere
in the United States and I recall driving about in parts of the country where
I would have been more than happy to be able to hear ANY pop tune, the radio
spectrum seemingly filled with either what seemed like country songs about
Jesus, evangalists or radical right talk radio programs..
> If you devote your whole life to playing the violin and spend 20 years
> playing for a major orchestra - say in Pittsburgh... the most you can hope
> for is moderate wages while dufus guitar players with bizarre tattoos and no
> music education are making 100s of millions of dollars.
Its about entertainment and willingness to pay. Look at the 3 clowns tour
(Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti) a few years ago! Notice the marketing of
Nigel Kennedy, Vanessa-Mae and Charlotte Church... And its nothing new..
I refer one to some of the earliest marketing of an infant recording industry..
Enrico Caruso.. I guess its always been about pop.. Just what pop is.. has
changed over the years..
And some of the musicians, singers and conductors here--- while perhaps not
quite up to the stellar levels of pop kings and queens-- have been paid quite
well.. James Levine, for example, was hardly handed small change for his
stint here conducting the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra..
> Ballet is even worse... despite the fact that it costs a fortune to attend
> the ballet, almost nobody has the opportunity to attend, because they're
Maybe "nobody" has the opportunity to attend since as you say "it costs a
fortune to attend"..
> never performing. You most dance you're gonna see is on the sidelines of the
> football field and at half-time at basketball games.
Here in Munich we, of course, have ballet and one of the world's leading ballet
foundations (Heinz-Bosl Stiftung) is just around the corner from where I live.
Its also quite common (not just here but throughout the world) for middle class
parents to send their small children to ballet schools.. and to maybe get
instruction in song (for example via youth choirs) and learn some instruments..
--
--
Edward C. Zimmermann, Basis Systeme netzwerk, Munich
Office Leo (R&D):
Leopoldstrasse 53-55, D-80802 Munich,
Federal Republic of Germany
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http://www.nonmonotonic.net
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