(some of the attributes may have been munged by my newsreader - apologies
in advance)
> >
> > >(What date did the Bea Nettles book come out - I think this was the
> > first book that told you how to do it that had been on sale in the UK -
> > if very limited sale - since the '30's? Or was Peter Fredrick 1980 book
> > before this?)
> >
> > Bea Nettles book was published in USA in 1977 but made it over here a few
> > years latter,as did Arnalds Gassans,hand book of contempory photography
> > 1977 and Kent E Wades, Alternative Photographic processes,1978 also we
> > must not forget T I Williams little but influential book Pigment Printing
> > Processes, and my
> > real friend David Scopick, whose book, The Gum Bichromate book published
> > by light impressions 1978, and of course the seminal book by William
> > Crawford, Keepers of the light 1979.
>
> The Bea Nettles book was certainly the first I came across - I think it must
> have been in some specialist outlets - perhaps Coo Press or the
> Photographers' Gallery in 77 or 78. I also bought the Gassan book around
> this time (and lent it to Terry for some years I remember!), but this was
> all some time after we had got started.
>
> Interested to hear you were at it in the '60's - what was it that started
> you on gum etc?
>
> >
> > These flock of books instigated the revival.
This list of books and dates makes me want to jump in to this thread.
I recall when they all came out and, had you asked me at the time (late
70's) I would have said that the alternative process "revival" had been
going on for at least a decade at that point. In 1977, for example, the
Gassan book (Handbook for Contemporary Photography) was in its third
edition having first appeared in the late 60's.
One thing this discussion makes me realize is that the beginning of the
alt-photo revival for each of seems to date from the time we first
discovered these processes. I remember reading an article about a
platinum printer a few years ago which made the claim that this
photographer "reintroduced" the platinum process (presumably to the
world) in the early 1980's. Obviously, the photographer (or maybe the
person who wrote the article, it wasn't clear) was unaware of all the
others who were actively doing platinum printing at the same time. I
think that this sense of being "the first" is simply human nature mixed
in with a dash of the arrogance of innocence.
For me, the initial discovery of alt-photo processes came from
sources such as Peter Bunnell's edited reprint of 19th Century articles:
"Non-Silver Processes," early editions of Gassan's Handbook, and
some important shows that were curated by Bunnell at MOMA which featured
people like Robert Fichter, Robert Heinekin (sorry about the spelling)
and not only illustrated alternative processes, but more importantly,
alternative ways of seeing. At the time, it seemed natural, everything
that happened at that time was exploring an alternative view of the
world and the processes at the time simply supported it.
Yet, if these were my beginnings, there must have been earlier influences
for the people who influenced me, and so on. I tend to suspect that most
of these "rediscovered" processes were never really lost in the first
place, as for example, when Strand went to reprint his gravure "Mexico
Portfolio" in the late sixties he found the same printer who had originally
printed the set in the 30's.
>
> I think it is clear that there were a very small number of people interested
> and actively working in the 1970's - no doubt we could both add a few more
Seemed more like a herd of people at the time (what is a collective noun
for alternative process photographers?) I was hired by a school in 1975
primarily to teach classes in nonsilver photography because there was
so much demand for it.
> names. Not all were working successfully. You mention one TV series but I
> remember a story about a quite different one in which an eminent UK photo
> historian demonstrated the Collodion process. When I was failing to get this
> to work with Terry we met one of the other people who had been making the
> series and asked her about this, only to be told that he hadn't actually
> managed to get it to work either, and the successful negative that was shown
> was from the museum collection!
I think you mean Bill Jay who did this for the BBC in the late 60's or
early 70's and had some interesting stories to tell about it. I believe
you are right that he did not get it to work.
>
> However I think is was in the mid '80's with the approach of the 150 years
> that things really started to take off, and that following this we have seen
> an enormous growth of interest.
>
I agree that there are more choices and better distribution of information
now than ever. This list is ample proof of that.
Carson
carson@ileaf.com