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



Jewish
----- Original Message ----- From: "jefulton1" <jefulton1@comcast.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 9:14 PM
Subject: Re: black fingernails, et al, was Re: Paper - baby oil Digi Negs


I don't quite get why Morley had a rough time due to religious prejudice.
Only knowing him peripherally he seemed to really be quite successful in
my eye.
Jack



On Sep 15, 2009, at 8:58 AM, joachim oppenheimer wrote:

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