>Have you ever seen any work (gum prints) by the author of this book? If
>so, were they any good? People who have nothing better to do than write
>books for money do a grave disservice to those who are honestly
>searching to better their skills.
>
>I'll stick by the "show me your work first, then maybe I'll listen to
>you" technique.
It is true that most of the books written today on alt-photo are nothing
more than re-hashes of earlier work and quite frankly aren't worth the
money. Very little innovation, or invention is going on today in alt-photo.
Most people are still doing platinum and palladium in the way that Paul
Anderson described it his book and in magazine articles in the 30's.
Anderson's method can produce excellent prints, but is sorely limiting in
many ways, so I am glad to see that at least some folks are exploring and
coming up with better ways to make platinum prints than the old A and B
ferric and developing out in a weak organic acid salt.
I understand that Mike Ware is doing a book on cyanotype. Now Dr. Ware
certainly has better things to do than write books for money and if anyone
thinks that he's going to get rich on this book, well...
Now it happens to be that Mike makes nice pictures, he knows how to point a
camera, but if he didn't, I'd still be very very interested in what he has
to say about cyanotype seeing how he has spent the better part of two
decades studying ferric salts in photography.
I learned a great deal from Jack MacDonald, a former teacher of Mortensen's
in Laguna Beach. Jack was awful. Purely awful. His images were absolute
dreck. Not only did he not know how to point a camera -- everything was
imitative Pictorialism -- he also couldn't execute the process either. BUT
he did know how old William did some of the things he did. There is a
difference in the "doing", the "knowing" and ability to teach. Not
recognizing that, could severely limit one.
--Dick
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