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End of an Era
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This was a comissioned shoot for the national print museum of ireland and the guy in the shot is actually a gentlemand called vincent caprani, although retired now he dedicates his time to keeping the old school alive and regularly prints invitations by hand for the museum, so i really wanted some of these guys in the shots, more for character and composition than beautiful photography !
I have a whole series of stuff that i shot for the museum and one in particular is ver special to me, ill put it up later and let u have a look at it.
Lovely shots Gerry – I can almost smell the ink 8)
I also have to say (with my Designer hat on) I’d really like to see more detail of the old-fashioned manual typesetting stuff. If you have any more shots along those lines, please post them.
I really should get around to visiting that place, too…
D.
Just great!
Even at the tender age of 43, with a healthy dose of ink running in my veins via family business connections, I can remember cold metal typesetting, foot-cranked presses and all the stages in between then and now (golfball typewriters with changeable fonts!, Compugraphics with all the fonts on separate sheets of film and the joys of the pasteup and process camera for final film output, green screen and 8″ floppy drive setting systems, early black and white Macs and Pagemaker, less early Mac IIs with huge screens and lots of SCSI cards, Syquest drives, the miracles that were the first versions of Illustrator, Photoshop and QuarkXPress, and so on and so forth to the present day).
These pics strike a chord, and as you say, are truly the end of an era. The like of these old boys and machinery will not be seen again.
SteveFE wrote:
… the joys of the pasteup and process camera for final film output …Syquest drives…
Ahh, massive 40mb and 80mb Syquest discs! …memories!!!!!!!
Not to mention – overlay artwork with ruby lith, Letraset, rubdowns, slicing the tips of your fingers with scalpel blades, etc.
The good ole days! …well, some of them, anyway!
Great collection of images. Don’t have a favourite but like them all. Wonderful subject matter. Remember bigger machines than these from a summer job a long time ago just before Litho came in. My mothers family were compositors and book binders. I remember a machine that created the lead type and one the guys use to fry eggs on it. I can still smell the ink.
It gives me great satisfaction reading the comments, im flattered – it means i’ve done my job well, and u guys are really bringing back memories to me jesus the eggs frying, and even later when they made the plates for long run jobs like cadburys wrappers etc before the runs were long enough for the gravure printing. And you would get the smell of roast chicken and ask where its coming from, it would be a chicken cooking with the plates lol in the oven for baking the plates. And when the comps and lino operators in the press and indo had to drink a pint of mulk supplied free of charge every hour to avoid led poisining, wow were they the good old days i wonder lol. Although i now look back on them with fond memories and realise they were simplier times and i have to say happier ones.
I have a lot of shots in the sequence and would be delighted to post more of them when i get a chance and guys – thanks again for making my job worthwhile.
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