by way of Matt Baker (c_richard_head@yahoo.com)
Mon, 02 Aug 1999 16:57:09 -0400 (EDT)
judy asked if rubbing my paper leaves oil in spots:
i was once concerned about this myself so i did a few tests several
years ago to study this possibility. what i did was to weigh the paper
both before and after i rubbed it on a very accurate scale maintained
at an Gaithersburg Office of the US Bureau of Weights and Measures
(just outside Washington DC). I found that on average my paper has
gained a median weight of 0.003 nanograms after I wipe it firmly making
three mean average thorough passes. This experiment was repeated
sufficiently to establish a 95 percent confidence factor for this
average, which means to me that its pretty darn reliable. I then
immediately sealed some of this paper in a spare bell jar i happened to
have in my trunk and took these samples directly over to the office of
one of my old RIT college alums. I'm retired of course. Yet, he
happens to work for the National Institute of Health, headquartered in
Bethesda just a little ways from Gaithersburg. Of course, I sterilized
the jar in an autoclave that was available to the public on a first
come first serve 24-hour loan basis at the National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health, which is next door to the National
Institute of Health. Unfortunately, the loaner bell jar autoclave is
no longer available because i tripped and dropped it in the parking lot
when i was taking it back. Both Gathersburg and Bethesda are in
Maryland. It's broken. He's some kind of biologist. I think he said
he was a micropathologist, but i didn't seem to write that down in my
copius technical notes.
anyway, he did a thorough study that took him and several of his
colleagues more than 14 months of full-time research to finish. I was
very surprised they were able to do this at taxpayer expense. When he
explained, I said that they were very ingenius about getting to qualify
this very important alternative work under the Aids Research Project.
He said: "not really, they do this sort of thing all the time." During
the process, they had me prepare several more samples. Once i couldn't
wash my hands for three days during which times i was required to
attempt donating regular sperm samples (i think they wanted to freeze
some for their Master Printer seed bank, but i'll have to go back and
try that part again with a better movie.) anyway, they found that, and
this is just for the "routinely washes hands iterations of the
experiment." For those who are technically-minded or want to verify my
results, I wash regularly and just before beginning a printing session
with liquid Dial #1 Antibacterial Soap. in this mystery material, they
found an weighted average of .027568903 nanograms of solid materials
comprised on average of the following: 16 percent light skin oil, 13
percent pulverized dehydrated skin flakes, 27 percent mascerated
dandruff pulp, and 47 percent "sea salt." The difference was
attributed to errors and possilbly a bit of h2o (light water).
They concluded that with decent personal hygiene that since the oil
residue is light skin oil and not heavy skin oil, there is no reason to
be alarmed. This small smidgen of light skin oil won't interfere with
any alternative photo, printing, or other art processes and is likely
to contribute a small increase in the archival permanence of the
paper/art.
===
C. Richard Head, Photographer
C. Richard Head Fine Art Photography
Especially Toned Silver Gelatin Photographs &
Exquisite Platinum and Rare Uranium Limited Editions, imp.
Workshops and One-on-One Personal Instruction
_____________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Free instant messaging and more at http://messenger.yahoo.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 28 1999 - 21:40:40