jewelia (jewelia@erols.com)
Mon, 05 Apr 1999 10:56:12 -0700
good morning charles:
i don't want to drag this out. but will clarify for others out there that i
don't generally put my mylar (when on rare occassions i make use of it)
under my negative. because i use it for its spectral properties i tend to
use it more often like i and some others use ruby or golden rod -- which are
also used for what i'll call spectral purposes also--that is either over the
negative or the glass of my vacuum frame. long, long ago--wanting something
that behaved a little less severly than ruby--i noted i could see through
mylar like it wasn't there -- but also noted that mylar prints -- that is
you can see where the mylar was on a test strip for instance--so like a lot
of other things i've noted--i filed that away in my wee memory bank of a
tool box....because i want no technical accolades per se, its a waste of
time for me to prove the following--but my guess is that mylar works a bit
different than say ruby--seems to me to affect contrast a wee bit besides
exposure time (and this seems to be a reasonable guess to me because i
unlike a good piece of ruby--i can see that essentially all of the visible
light still makes it through the mylar and from a test strip--doesn't seem
to block all of the nonvisible light i am working with (also seems that one
mylar is not the same as the next)--and that makes for some interesting uses
as far as i am concerned--not an everyday tool but on occassion a useful one
for me.
personally, i have no problem with anyone's personal preferences. but you
seem to have a wonderful reductionist way of putting your's up so strongly
as universals?
an interesting peice of empiricism would be to put a number of prints in
front of you made by some of the better artists--some who use nuarcs and
some who use lightbanks and have you and a few others make you
pick---somehow i preceive that this really wouldn't be worth the effort
these days and based on the work i have seen during the past years by other
workers--most of whom are a far cry from working in the pictorial
tradition--i sincerely doubt you or anyone can say which is printed by
which. (btw: the pictorial tradition is a lot richer than fuzzy --which is
not an arguement for "which is better -pure or pictorial--as far as i'm
concerned these are worn out dogmatic arguements we don't need either).
the fact of the matter is that most of the better workers in P/P as well as
most other techniques that i know these days use lightbanks--many using
enlarged negs and/or printing big--and they make great work--a far cry
better than you seem to imply and as good as any other by any measure of the
eye (which the visual arts are all about). most of these persons seem a lot
less personally involved with their choice of lightsource--most of us would
have them all if we could and find light sources something interesting to
discuss but not necessarily rank universially--which is hardly in the
interest of creative endeavor.
cheerios
jewelia Margueritta Cameroon
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