U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | RE: black fingernails, et al, was Re: Paper - baby oil Digi Negs

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



I do not know much about Imigene Cunningham and her relation to botany, but
I knew Morley Baer very well. Morley was an architectural photographer who
had a rough time making a living because, at the time, religious prejudice
was rampant. Joachim

-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Seigel [mailto:jseigel@panix.com] 
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 11:10 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: black fingernails, et al, was Re: Paper - baby oil Digi Negs


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
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>
>