RE: "Dick Stevens' book."
Title: RE: "Dick Stevens'
book."
Dick Stevens' book came about because of the publish or perish
situation of many university professors. Stevens was a professor at
Notre Dame, where Sam Wang taught at the beginning of his career. So
the book was organized from the perspective of someone in academia
whose primary goal was to put a publication on the table that would be
accepted by his peers and earn him promotion.
Some years
ago I went through much of the literature on kallitype printing,
devised my own way of working, and published an article on it at www.
unblinkingeye. come. Early on that that article I wrote:
"One of the things that has turned people off on kallitype is its
seeming complexity. Virtually every text on kallitype lists numerous
developer formulas, each capable of providing a different color or
tone, with an infinite number of variations in processing: time of
development, time of clearing, strength and length of fixing, etc,
which can be very confusing for the beginner. If you really want to
know how complicated kallitype printing can become, have a look at
Dick Stevens' book, Making Kallitypes: A Definitive
Guide."
In my opinion most of the research done by Stevens, and his
conclusions, is fundamentally sound. But I agree with Judy that the
organization is lacking, and especially "if you think of the book
as a guide to kallitype printing," which is its title and how
Stevens himself saw its purpose. One would find a very hard time
taking this book and actually learning to make kallitype prints. You
might be able to do it but the trail would take you through some
pretty rough and wooded terrain that might juste as well be
avoided.
Sandy King
At 9:37 AM -0500 3/21/07, Eric Neilsen wrote:
Judy, You did in fact raise this issue
years back, but I fail to see how a
book that talks about in order; historical printing, contemporary
printing,
ferric oxalate, optimizing the sensitizer, paper choice and
coating,
exposing, developing, clearing & fixing, washing and toning, and
then some
additional observations. What is out of order there? It
introduces you to
the process in both historical terms and then in today's practical
terms
(1993). It then gives you information to make the solutions required
to
print and helps with paper choice. It follows along the process
from
beginning to end. There may be some statements that don't match
your
experiences or may be fundamentally different from yours. I haven't
read
through every page in many years so I can't speak to page to page
errors,
but I think the basic work flow is fine.
And as Sandy pointed out, there is no comment to Sodium Citrate in the
text.
There is reference to adding acid to keep the yellow stain at bay.
Eric
Eric Neilsen Photography
4101 Commerce Street
Suite 9
Dallas, TX 75226
http://e.neilsen.home.att.net
http://ericneilsenphotography.com
Skype ejprinter
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Judy Seigel [mailto:jseigel@panix.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 12:34 AM
> To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
> Subject: "Dick Stevens' book."
>
> On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Sandy King wrote:
>
> > If the subject is kallitype you won't find anything in Dick
Steven' book
> > about sodium citrate as a developer. He did his research
quite a long
> time
>
> And just as well. It so happened I was testing kallitype
about the
> time Stevens' book surfaced,... and besides what my tests showed,
his
> confusion, disorganization, errors and contradictions were such
that I
> wouldn't trust that book if it told me the pope was catholic.
>
> Yes, it was a long time ago, so I don't recall many particulars,
but among
> the unforgettable was his announcement that such and such
condition or
> material would look blue if acid, and a few pages later, same
thing would
> look red.
>
> If that were the only gross error (which it wasn't), still, the
general
> cockamamie "organization" (or more precisely
disorganization) was such
> that even without errors the presentation would cause brain
damage. And
> even without brain damage (say, the
reader was wearing her teflon space
> helmet) the exercise would be counterproductive. Some folks, like
Sandy,
> could take it in stride, probably ward it off on autopilot, but
that
> doesn't mean it's OK to let loose on the general public.
>
> As I recall, BTW, I wrote this to the list about 10 years ago, in
my
> youth, when I remembered more particulars -- tho OK, how about:
the book
> opens with a long painstaking detailed chapter about a
> formula/method/technique at the end of which the author announced
that the
> method wasn't any good so never mind.
>
> An "editor" with an IQ above minus 2 would have told
him, if you feel the
> need to tell this story (padding? boasting?), that's an appendix,
not an
> entire first chapter. Surely I'm not the only one with limited
time and
> energy. That bogus first chapter was theft of both.
>
> etc.
>
> Judy
|