Re: black fingernails, et al, was Re: Paper - baby oil Digi Negs

[Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>]

On Sun, 13 Sep 2009, SteveS wrote:

> Don't understand this, and all the time I thought you were senior in this 
> game, Judy :)
>
> Imogene Cunningham was a chemist, majored in the university including the 
> Sorbone, minor in boteny (hense the flower pics); Stichen commanded piro into 
> the military where he did the chemistry on board ship . . . Morley Baer was 
> one of his supbordinates; and Stlieglitz was one of the labratory pioneers of 
> color processes.
Listen Steve S., if yr gonna lecture me on details of history, could you 
kindly try to get it right?  I mean....

boteny !!! (yuck !!)

hense !! Ow, ow ow  !!

Stichen !!! Oh dear lord !

Sorbone... some kind of disease, with backaches?

supbordinates :  ouch ouch ouch (unless that's a new kind of drink???)

piro: What's that... a California dance?

> Where you been girl?  Library's down to the left and uptown 'bout a dozen 
> blocks.
Oh my dear boy, if yr telling me 'bout "the library uptown 'bout a dozen 
blocks" -- I don't know what kind of library they have in podunk, but if 
you mean the NY Public Library, that's more than 40 blocks, or 2 miles, 
uptown from here and east about 4 avenue blocks -- equal to 12 street 
blocks. But anyway, so what?

You have both a dictionary for spelling regular words & a photo history 
for spelling Steichen, et al, half a room or 10 steps away.  For all the 
good it did you.

Also, my dear, one of the reasons I know so much is that I can prioritize. 
I'd never been in a darkroom before I was 48 years old, but before then 
knew (from reading, among other activities) how to spell "hence," a few 
facts and blessings of "botany," and that not even I could pronounce 
"Stlieglitz."  I daresay I've read the bios of lots of photogs, including 
Cunningham, who sat her hubby (or was it her son?) on a cake of ice (a 
provocative thought either way), tho the fact that Cunningham was a 
chemist seens irrelevant. In fact I'd guess that chemists did NOT believe 
that real men put their naked hands in the soup:  They knew better.

PS.  One of my best early works in photography was a solarized dye 
transfer of a bouquet of flowers... Did I have to know their brand names? 
So call them asters.

love & kisses,

Judy

> S. Shapiro
>
> PS
> Cunningham printed for Curtis . . . those orotypes of Indians.  She 
> inspired/invented the curtistype of brass instead of gold .
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Judy Seigel" <jseigel@panix.com>
> To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
> Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 11:38 AM
> Subject: Re: black fingernails, et al, was Re: Paper - baby oil Digi Negs
>
>
> > What I'm wondering is.... did folks like Stieglitz, Steichen and Imogene 
> > Cunningham do their own darkroom work?  I'm also thinking fame may have 
> > been more likely for those with a long life... they not only lived to do 
> > their "mature work," they were around to hustle it. (I also know folks who 
> > printed for famous photographers, for instance, for Helen Levitt-- and 
> > where the printing process isn't part of the image [as in "alt" & maybe 
> > sometimes even then], I'd count that a consumation devoutly to be wished.)
> >
> > Meanwhile, the only name that came to mind right off for early death was 
> > Gary Winogrand (and that only because photography's best sneerer, AD 
> > Coleman, sneered at him in one of his books for having left -- hundreds? 
> > thousands? -- of rolls of exposed film unexamined at his death)... 
> > Winogrand was 56.
> >
> > In any event, I doubt that the figure about increased cancer among 
> > photographers was baseless...  Tho now that I think of it, a friend of mine 
> > took David Vestal's class in fine printing at Pratt.... I'll check with her 
> > about his stand on hands-in ... & also check his books to see if there's a 
> > caveat.
> >
> > I also point out that I never in my life had a sign of allergy of *any* 
> > kind -- not hay fever, not ragweed, not bee stings, let alone bananas and 
> > chocolate that torture me today (sob!). I suppose, therefore, that it was 
> > the years of intimate contact with turpentine in a closed room that brought 
> > it on...  I also note that in a painting class in those days (maybe still 
> > today ?) before acrylics, each student had a butcher tray of oil paints 
> > squeezed out and mixed in the center, that is, about 25 trays sloshing with 
> > turpentine in a closed classroom..  Any "fine art" student was likely to 
> > have had several such classes, as did I.
> >
> > cheers,
> >
> > Judy
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, 30 Aug 2009, Joseph Smigiel wrote:
> >
> > > Imogen Cunningham at  93 died the same day as Minor White on June 24, 
> > > 1976. Perhaps Imogen used tongs.
> > >
> > > Joe