Pass the negative thread?

[ibcrewin]

This may sound silly, but I thought I'd throw it out here anyway.

I was reading an article in a magazine where they took a negative and gave it to two printers each printer came out with two different looking final prints. Then I thought well, we have traveling camera going through the world, how about a traveling negative!

Each participant would print the negative, using whatever chemistry, paper, toning etc. Then send out the print, negative and notes page and send it off to the next participant.

Any takers?

[pesphoto]

I would do it, but my darkroom is in mothballs right now from our move.
Cool idea though I hope it happens.

[bmattock]

No negative threads. You're all banned.

[sheepdog]

ouch! my stomach hurts from laughing :-)

[shadowfox]

Ivan, this may work well for maybe up to 5 people.
It probably won't work too well with 20 people like the travelling camera projects.

A the end, if you can find a local coffee shop whose owner is a photography fan, you can have a mini gallery. That would be cool.

Alas, I don't have a darkroom and I don't know how to wet-print. :(

[ibcrewin]

Totally right about the 5 people limit..

Go the negative!

[drewbarb]

No negative threads. You're all banned.
Ha! THAT's funny.

I like the idea of a "pass the negative". "The Printer's Art" section of Black and White magazine is one of my favorite sections of any photo mag these days. One thing I would suggest if we do try this is would be not to limit it to traditional darkroom work only. Many folks here scan and work digitally from there. In fact, in "the Printers Art" section this month, one of the printers worked the negative that way.

Another idea we might consider is to do a negative swap, not unlike a print swap, and see how we might interpret each other's negatives, using whatever processes we like.

I'm not sure how this whole thing would work, in terms of being able to share the resultant images. I myself do tradtional wet darkroom work for a living. I am hopeless with most digtial imaging processes, and anyway I prefer only to show actual prints (these are the main reasons I have virtually no photographs online), so I like the idea of finding a small gallery space which might show the fruits of such an exchange- but as an online community, doing anything with real physical prints as the final product introduces some challenges. Any other ideas?

[charjohncarter]

And/or pass a digital file, and each person post processes it his or her way. Then the finished files are posted on a section in the RFF gallery. I know that takes some of the variables out of it, but you might get more participation.

[Wobbly]

sounds fun, I may be in if there are enough others. How about instead of sending the prints with the neg., wait until all have printed then send everyone a print? that way we aren't influenced by how others printed it? thoughts?

[ibcrewin]

All good ideas.. Keep em coming!

[matt fury]

I think you should each keep the resulting print you make so as to not change the next guy in line's thought process. And then scan them all and post them for us all to see, or maybe just collect all the prints after and pass them along as a package to whoever's interested.