When last we spoke, I revealed that I was working on a publication. After
a run of what can only be called *merit* delays, the first issue of The
World Journal of Post-Factory Photography is about to go to the printer.
The dignified masthead proclaims,
**** How-2 & Y ****
A Running Banner in small type cites,
FREE-RANGE PHOTOGRAPHY.... INTER-ACTIVE MINITEXTS.....
COMMENTARY ON ISSUES AND IDEAS.... PAST LIVES....
NEGATIVE THINKING.... FACTS..... SECRETS
A message to today's Society of Photographic Education conference adds:
EXPLANATIONS, REFLECTIONS, REVELATIONS
HISTORY, IDEAS, CARTOONS, SECRETS
Facts, Formulas, Short Cuts, Long Cuts
Pros will love it, BEGINNERS NEED IT.
Nowhere else in print. Nowhere else, mostly.
Free Introductory Copy.
"Post-Factory Photography," the concept, is explained in a lead article,
followed by "Les Procedes d'Art en Photographie," an essay of 1906.
Co-authors Puyo and Demachy were eloquent, passionate, and confident. This
never-before-in-English manifesto of Pictorialism is an unsung gem of
photo history.
"Gum Control," next, opens with a quote from the list's own Marc Bruhat
(and exculpates him entirely). After that, "Basic Gum Bichromate" is a
step-by-step how-to with explanations, advice, formulas, diagrams and
illustrations, from choosing paper to multi-coat registration, nine pages
of authoritative, time- and student-tested ways to enter this amazingly
flexible "post-factory" process.
"Quantum Mechanic/Quantum Magic" begins on page 21 with a splendid
self-portrait by Professor Bob Schramm, looking as serious as his camera.
This section includes Schramm's detailed guide to "Fish Heads," his
striking Vandyke brown print on artist's canvas, his report on four
different VDB formulas, and another on what it was like to meet an
admiring public in a gallery talk ("fun," actually).
Other features on artists are "Drawing on the Right Side of the Computer,"
with Carmen Lizardo, and John Metoyer's "Vandalous Dreams of Blue" in New
Cyanotype, prominent in the new John Wood book (reviewed), and at the new
Platinum Gallery, New York.
Negative Thinking follows -- 11 pages of "Sense and Sensitometry" tell (1)
how to make the H&D Curve your slave, and (2) how to make perfect enlarged
negatives without a densitometer. Illustrated and annotated, with a list
of 17 options for enlarged negatives, the section concludes with (3) a
sure-cure for insomnia in back-country motels.
Somewhere in there is a cameo of "The St. Louis and Canadian
Photographer," a magazine of 100 years ago today, March 1898. "Answer
Person" answers some good questions and has a good trick. Another article,
"Analog Woman in Digital Hell," is not, as you might suppose, mere
autobiographical whining, but includes timely excerpts from newspaper
stories that explain why your hard drive crashes.
The finale is four pages of alt-photo Sources and Services, 68 places to
get everything -- the cheapest, the best, the most, the hardest to find,
the familiar and the semi-secret -- with tips like the right fluorescent
bulb (avoid a costly mistake), supermarket options, and a special offer
on silver nitrate for Post-Factory readers.
So of course you want your free copy... Easy one-page how-to on that tomorrow.
cheers,
Judy Seigel, Editrix