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gener7
Community Expert
gener7Community Expert
Community Expert
March 26, 2017
Question

A photography themed pencil: Dorothea Lange Blackwing

  • March 26, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 1026 views

Just was at Cliff's Variety Store (San Francisco) and came across this special edition tribute pencil set to photographer Dorothea Lange, famous for her 1936 Migrant Mother photo.

https://blackwing602.com/blackwing-volumes-volume-344/  

The pencil is themed as to how it would appear under a red safelight.

Just something I'm sure photographers here who once used darkrooms would like to see.

Gene

Note: They are sold out on this website, but Jetpens.com should have them.

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      1 reply

      Trevor.Dennis
      Community Expert
      Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 27, 2017

      gener7  wrote

      Note: They are sold out on this website, but Jetpens.com should have them.

      I wonder how many they sold and who bought them? 

      I also wonder what Dorothea would have thought of taking a photograph with a tiny cell phone?

      http://k01.kn3.net/496FCD18C.jpg

        gener7
        Community Expert
        gener7Community ExpertAuthor
        Community Expert
        March 27, 2017

        Digital photography would have been a treat. Add touching up in Lightroom or Photoshop and transferring the final work to any destination in the world via cloud storage or showcasing on Flickr.

        In 1936:

        Box camera, plates, and any color so as long as it was black and white. Then it went to a lab if she did not have access to a darkroom.

        Post-processing meant knowing how long the plates stayed in the chemical bath for the amount of exposure.

        I came in at tail end of  the film era when a drugstore could run a 36 shot roll through a machine in one hour for $11 in 4x5 prints. That was 1990s dollars and one batch is more than the Photography Plan.

        Anyway, I guess Blackwing did sell out of the stock, and I know some went to stores like Cliff's. The 24 USD price is reasonable for a dozen limited run pencils. They do send some of the proceeds to fund school programs, but I'm not sure what schools get it and in in what amount.

          Trevor.Dennis
          Community Expert
          Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          March 28, 2017

          I had a darkroom at home for several years, but it was the smell of the chemicals that I was happiest to leave behind.  I made the point in the Photoshop forum a few days ago, about my brother's trip to New Zealand.  At the end of a five wee trip he took home 850Gb of mostly video from a dashcam and his Hero 5, and 50Mp stills from my 5DS that I loaned him.  The bugger also knocked my UHF whip off the roof bending the roof panel into the bargain, and left a terrible smell in my truck (that I loaned him) that still hasn't gone completely several weeks later.

          But getting back to his 850Gb of imagery, after my first four week trip here for a holiday, I took home two 36 exposure rolls of transparencies!

          By way of a very loose segway, I'd read that charcoal is good for absorbing smells, so I bought a box of charcoal drawing pencils from the stationary shop that spend at least half an hour a week browsing just in case they have got exciting new stock in .  I spread them out around my truck, but they haven't made a jot of difference.

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