[pure-silver] Re: Organic?

Let me speculate a bit. And I believe the definition of organic is waaaay stretched from what it once was. 

You could say there are three parts to 'being organic';
Origin (are the source materials close to their original form in nature? [without chemicals/compounds viewed as harmful/undesireable])
Process (does the process [how they were grown, raised, created] involve use/addition of non-organic/harmful materials?)
End-product/disposal (will the end of the product's life-cycle involve the use/addition of non-organic/harmful materials?)
I believe people are hoping/believing that 'organic' will mean 'beneficial' to the Earth as a whole and to themselves individually. Or at least not harmful.
In the case of produce/meat (vegetables, chickens, etc), this means no pesticides, fungicides, growth-hormones, etc. The idea being that using those substances will, at some point in the life-cycle of the product, cause harm, either to the producer, the individual consumer, or to the planet (effects may not be immediately obvious).
In the case of photography, it's messy. It would be very difficult for me to imagine a photographic process (start to finish) that, in its entirety, is 'organic' or non-harmful to either an individual or the planet. Were there any poisonous chemicals used in the production of your camera, lens, film, enlarger, darkroom chemicals, etc.? Very likely, yes. That's almost a given. Were these chemicals controlled in such a manner that they will have no negative effect on the planet? Tricky. We will probably never know the answer, so all we can do is speculate.
Much as I love photography, I cannot, in good conscience, think of it as organic. Somewhere in the process, there were nasty chemicals, or use of limited materials, or something, that had a negative effect on the planet or an individual(s). Hopefully, the companies involved have evolved to the point of minimizing the damage their processes create. So that, while some past photographic processes were very dangerous (mercury), going forward, the processes are as clean as we can reasonably expect. 




Mark Blackwell wrote:
<SNIP Of Precise Thinking>


 It is one of the problems with language, especially the written
 word. Context is often difficult if not impossible to determine. Yet
 we should be as careful as possible to portray the meaning.



All very well said, and I wholly agree.  But the problem with the
term "organic" as commonly used is not that it is changing meaning,
it is that it is *obscuring* meaning.  This, no doubt, is in no
small part  due to the marketer of "organic" products who've
discovered that you can sell a lot with guilt and misdirection.



 Now is a print organic or not. Well these are often the people that
 would drive with their knees an inch from their chins in a Yugo that
 gets 900mph at 900 feet per hour. What would I do? First I'd make a
 print on fiber based paper and tell them everything used in making
 the print was "All Natural" in that everything used to make it came
 from nature. We may have doctored it a bit. grin.


I rather like this.  To the best of my knowledge, everything in my
darkroom is "natural" (derived from nature), "organic" (produced
by carbon-based living beings), pesticide free (none need),
and free range (I walk untethered therein).  I wonder if I could
use this in the promotion of my prints ...

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