Re: We are not the alternative

Peter Marshall ( petermarshall@cix.compulink.co.uk)
Sat, 11 January 1997 12:08 PM

In-Reply-To: <32D73073.A28@worldnet.att.net>

>
> Richard -
>
> To misquote Shakespear - "A rose by any other name would smell..."
>
> I think you have have made a good point. Purhaps Clasical would be a
> more appropriate alternative to Alternative, however non-silver seems to
> be more accurate. I really prefer to call each process what it is:
> Carbon, Cyanotype, Platinotype, Gum, et-cetera, et-cetera.
>
> What do the purchasers of fine photographic prints understand? Clasical
> may just be too confusing. I vote for Non-silver.
>
> Jeff

Alt-processes have 'traditionally' included such silver processes as the
kallitype, so I think non-silver doesn't really cover the area.

So with far as purchasers are concerned I think we need to stick to the
specific and recognised process names boom - such as gum bichromate, platinum
etc.

Personally I'm quite happy with the term 'alternative processes' to cover the
whole range of processes which this group embraces. Classical would hardly
cover the new chemistry that Mike Ware and others have introduced over the
past ten or so years.

It seems to me to involve a peculiar type of head-in-sand-burying to somehow
try and ignore that the dominant methods of photographic print production are
indeed those using commercially available gelatin silver and related methods.
To suggest that our methods of choice are an alternative to that doesn't
bother me at all.

Perhaps we might make things a little clearer by calling it alternative
printmaking, as - with few exceptions - we are concerned with this aspect of
the photographic procedure, and still use conventional methods for negative
production.

Peter Marshall

On Fixing Shadows, Dragonfire and elsewhere:
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~ds8s/
Family Pictures & Gay Pride: http://www.dragonfire.net/~gallery/
and: http://www.speltlib.demon.co.uk/

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