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The Rodolfo Namias Group (GRN) was founded in 1991 and named by the master of Italian photographic chemistry;
it is associated with F.I.A.F. (Italian Federation of Photographic Associations), and it is a part of the National Groups.
The GRN is not for the sake of gain and it is non-political; its aims are the finding out, developement, testing and elaboration of old photographic printing techniques, assuring the widest liberty of expression to the members for their images. It organizes and participates to photography exhibitions and similar events; it promotes, develops and enhances the knowledge and the diffusion of the Old Photographic Techniques also through didactic, cultural and recreational initiatives favouring the amateurs' practices of the processes, as well as through meetings, courses, collaboration with specialized magazines, etc.
In the years 1980-90, some amateurs became aware of the advantages to print their images on non-conventional sensible materials, in order to achieve a quality unobtainable on common silver-bromide papers.
Between the end of XIX and the beginning of XX centuries the photographers developed a large choice of light sensible surfaces. They were forced to do that, especially during the second half of 1800, in lack of marketed products.
In recent times, many operators were attracted by the aesthetic qualities of these so-called Old Printing Techniques (OPT).
Nowadays it is more valuable discovering again those techniques, when, from the shot to the final print, the waiting time has been shortened in a few hours, thanks to the very advanced technology of the photographic industry.
Our choice, substantially rejecting the standardized, constant and automathic results of the modern pictures, is going towards a photography wedding creativity and manual labour, where the image is made also of very different matter, surfaces and tones.
A mixture of selected chemicals may induce light sensitivity on a sheet of good quality drawing paper. This sensitivity is anyhow much lower if compared with standard silver process. For this reason all OPT use contact printing. Furthermore, the light output of common enlargers is too low, compelling to use light sources having a substantial output in UV range, using also exposure times of the order of many minutes.
Contact printing requires obviously an original -negative or positive depending on the technique in use- as big as the wanted final image. Moreover, OPT are rather expensive; they are not a way to spare money, as somebody could believe because of home preparation of the materials.
The seat of GRN is in Parma, Via Argonne 4, care of the Circolo Fotografico Il Grandangolo. The member's meetings are held in Parma or at other sites, usually on Sunday every six months. Roberto Lagrasta maintains the contacts, distributes information and updates the members list.
1 - Discussion on technical problems and on progress news
2 - Members images show; evaluation of the opportunity to participate to exhibitions
3 - New members evaluation and voting on their acceptance
4 - Promotion of contacts with organisms and persons interested to OPT
5 - Evaluation of collaboration with organisms and persons
6 - Organization of courses on OPT
7 - Organization of Round Tables and specialized exhibitions.
All GRN members have an highly specialized level of competence. New members are accepted by co-optation; they must have a good darkroom experience; the annual fee is paid by postal order.
- Our site made its debut on 21th July 2001, and it has been updated with the addition of new pages and the total remake of other ones in October 2003. It received the Silver Web-Link Award in September 2001.
- These pages are periodically tested with Internet Explorer 5.0 and higher, Netscape 4.7 and Opera 7.11.
- 27 members out of 29 are present with their works, and almost 800 their large images are visible.
- A curiosity: the left border with brush strokes and the background have been extracted from a cyanotype, while the colour of the standard characters, not exactly black, reproduces that of the shadows in an argyrotype.
- To assure the visitor the best readability, the pages and the images automatically fit the screen resolution.
- Some expedients have been adopted to avoid the automatic gathering of e-mail addresses from hakers (for the manual one there is nothing to do!).
- At present we receive about 30 visits a day.