Re: Richard Benson's new book
Quote: Some day someone will make an anthology of all the "cores", "essentials," and unique attributes of photography handed down to us by "experts" since day one. Not to mention all the (false) pronunciamentos about gum:It is a poor process, which we see here at its best in this landscape made in French town about 1910. Despite its occasional successes, gum bichromate is a poor process, unable to render the clear and beautiful tonalities that lie at the core of the photographic medium. This Benson fellow is not only a Johnny-come-lately, he's obsolete, as even a newbie reader of this list would know. (Tho his dummkopf-itude is outranked by John Schaefer, who spent long hours and many tubes of paint with David Scopick in the grand chore of listing the BEST mix for every color in gum printing for his book on "alternative processes" -- both "experts" blissfully unaware that just naming the colors, eg., "yellow ochre," "venetian red" or "viridian green," is meaningless, because every manufacturer has its own mix, names, additives and pigment sources.) Not to mention that if all photography could claim for itself were "clear and beautiful tonalities," it would have died dead and forgotten the moment inkjet printers arrived (assuming you could carry an inkjet printer into bed, bath and beyond)... But that's not why I write at this moment, which is to note something I'd forgotten, and now recall, thanks to the above-mentioned "wisdom." We had a list discussion some months ago about Bill Jay's book on Demachy, which, as I noted, was mostly nekkid ladies, plus a (very) few coy side views of men. But I recently came across a small book on my own shelf, which I'd picked up somewhere or other: "Robert Demachy" from the "Collection Photo Poche" with an introduction by Michel Poivert. 1997, Editions Nathan, Paris, ISBN 2-09-754 117-8. I forget the price, but not a lot. Many of the 61 prints shown are gums, including of course many firm fleshed young ladies in the altogether, but the variety, colors, and handling in all media (most of them pigment prints of one kind or another) are just as "photographic" as whatever Benson's ideals may be (tho I take him as from the how-many-tones-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin school of photography founded by -- what was his name ... Anstel somebody??? -- the fellow who gave the world arithmetic in Roman Numerals). Anyway, these Demachy's, even in cheap repro, show "clear and beautiful tonalities" of many shades -- tho if that's all you look for.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, I just fell asleep. PS: The book is in French, tho little more difficult than "Nu au lit, gomme bichromatee, vers 1900." J.
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