cshimokita
[Photo Forum Moderator]
10714
Oh Yes... the monster copy camera...
I wish I had a photograph. Like yours, the camera back was in the darkroom and the copy frame was in the next room. We could process 17x22 inch film on the camera back and had development / rinse / hypo trays to match. All chemicals were hand mixed - most likely not acceptable today... Lighting was provided by four arc lights (an arc lamp produces light by the sparking -an electrical arc- of a high current between two conducting electrodes, usually carbon rods). We normally shot max 8½ x 11 inch film (held in place on the camera back via vacuum) and did the film layout on a large light table before contact burning the offset plate.
After darkroom work, I spend a huge amount of time at the light table... with colour film we worked in complete darkness but with b&w we could use a red safety lamp... with an auditable second tick for timing...
Brings back memories... it was all a manual process ;-)
Brings back memories... it was all a manual process ;-)
Casey
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My introduction to scanning...
I did my first scanned halftone colour separations on a Hell Vario-Klischograph K 181 in 1966 or 67. Before that our shop produced their offset colour separations via a film/filter methodology. Our first venture into mechanical scanning was supported by a...
Don't even get me started on old print tech...
...I was speccing type and using wax and Xacto knives : ) ...even when Macs were available they weren't camera-ready yet : ) To this day I really miss the sound and smell of ink at a print shop during a press check...
Once you have worked in a print shop, ink is in the blood ;-)
thanks for the comment... Casey
I was an office slave doing the design...
...but I always looked forward to press checks and photo shoots...
For me it was a small offset shop so I did a little of everything...
Photography, type-set, layout, copy camera, colour separations, film development, plate making, press operator (17x22 Consolidated Pearl), folding, binding, cutting, drilling, delivery... most of the time I was in the darkroom... it was a great learning e...
Thanks for the behind the scene look .......
That's amazing. I got into offsett printing in 1972, but only did black and white. We had a monster camera with the copy and camera outide and the film part in the darkroom. Now it's a whole new world. Bob
Oh Yes... the monster copy camera...
I wish I had a photograph. Like yours, the camera back was in the darkroom and the copy frame was in the next room. We could process 17x22 inch film on the camera back and had development / rinse / hypo trays to match. All chemicals were hand mixed - most...
Yes doctor, that is INK in my veins
This is motivated by Casey's scanning tale. Forgive me for being so verbose. My first job was at a newspaper, on a machine collating the sections before dumping them in a cart for delivery to the paperboys. It was there I was told "You can't trust the sal...
Great story and photos Mike...
I wish I had taken some photos in the shop, it was a life changing experience. Casey
I remember another thing about film developing
You reminded me … We ran galleys a few feet long on our typesetters. Then we ran them through a waxer, cut the film into pieces and stuck it onto the page masters. Illustrations were spliced in where they were needed. Razor blades assisted in the fine spa...
We used rubber cement for the paper paste-ups...
black paper was glued in place where the photos would be located and the half-tones were taped in once the pages (negatives) were shot. The 70s fashion photos are hilarious... Casey .
I found a photo that I couldn't locate last week
Here I am in the data center for the Oklahoma City newspaper, the Daily Oklahoman. They were the first paper that I knew of who went to full digital page makeup, and I was there to learn how they did it. One thing I was told was they only rotated images d...
My first computer related job...
was a medical billing package running on Apple II with duel 5¼ floppy disk drives, b&w monitor of course... it was a really big story when we introduced a hard drive ;-) Love the photos... it was the fashion of the times that I remember well... Casey .
