Re: gum "curves"

[Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu>]

At 9:57 AM -0800 10/29/06, Katharine Thayer wrote:
> On Oct 27, 2006, at 12:41 PM, Sandy King wrote:
>
>
> Wow. Well, it's not hard to see why I  stopped reading this guy's 
> posts, too.  This, while not being a direct personal insult, 
> certainly is insulting even though it's delivered as an innuendo 
> rather than a direct insult.  I know who you're talking about, and I 
> rather agree about his prints, but it's like one of the old 
> propaganda techniques we learned in school  to suggest that because 
> so and so didn't like curves and his work was crap, then anyone who 
> hasn't found curves useful... well, draw your own conclusions.    If 
> you're saying my work is crap, then come right out and say it, 
> Sandy, let's not beat around the bush!

No, I did not say, or imply, that your work is crap. If I had wanted 
to say that, it would have been stated very directly. The work I 
criticized, I have seen in person. I would never call work I have not 
seen in person crap, and I have never had the opportunity to see any 
of your work in person. Alternative work has surface and textural 
qualities that are very important, and viewing on a monitor does not 
give any real indication of these qualities. Quite simply, I am not 
able to judge the quality of your work, or that of anyone else,  by 
looking at on a web site.

> But yes, I've looked at my prints in comparison to those made by 
> others using curves,  and I'm not afraid to compare my gum prints to 
> anyone's.
Have you seen this work in person? If so, may I ask whose work you 
have seen? It could be that what you saw was just very poor work, and 
not really a representative sample of what can be achieved. I am 
fairly certain there are many persons out there working with curves 
who are unable to take advantage of them because they lack sufficient 
control of the process.


>   Not everyone (not every photographer anyway) understands
some phases of the evolution of my vision over the years, or shares 
my aesthetic preferences, but it should be obvious to anyone from my 
demonstration prints that I can easily produce a print that fits the 
idea of "political correctness" in photography when I want to,  even 
if you don't understand some of my exhibition work, which is very 
much out of line, and deliberately so.

I don't know anything about your aesthetic preferences. I have never 
seen any of your exhibition work so have had no need to understand 
it. Nor do I have any idea of what you mean by the idea of "political 
correctness" in photography.  As I mentioned earlier, alternative 
printing, and to some extent most types of fine art photography, must 
be seen in person to be appreciated for anything other than their 
content.

Sandy King








> > > If people like the curves approach, be my guest. .  just don't 
> > > expect me to follow suit,  when there's no evidence that this is a 
> > > superior approach in some objective sense that demonstrates its 
> > > superiority in superior prints, and so far no evidence from my own 
> > > observations that  this approach would improve my own prints in 
> > > any way, or make them more consistent or my process more reliable 
> > > than they already are.
> > >
> > > Katharine