Re: experimental photography

Date view	Thread view	Subject view	Author view

Christina,

You say that the standard alternative process have already been covered by current books. This is true but, I might submit, not all processes are covered well. Some of the books on the market could do a better job of discussing details. Some of them perpetrate myths and errors from previous publications.

If you look at some of the articles in the Post Factory Journal you will find examples of how to write an article about a specific process that not only provides complete information about the process but also includes the kind of accurate information one needs to actually use the process. These articles are written by people who are actually doing these processes.I think this  is why the PFJ is so popular.

I have collected just about every book written about the alternative processes since "Keepers of Light" which is the first book I bought. I have also saved a lot of stuff from this list and, of course, subscribed to the Post Factory Journal. There is a lot of material out there but its not all either accurate or complete. When I began teaching alternate process printing on the college level, I wrote my own manual based on my own experiences. This was prior to PFJ. I did a lot of work experimenting with and testing the material I found in the existing publications before I did any writing. I remember spending about a month one summer teasting and checking out everything I could find out about cyanotype i.e. various formulas, ways to improve contrast, toning methods etc. In the end, I felt that I really knew something about cyanotype. I did something similar with VDB and this led to an article in PFJ which you can look up.

If you are going to write, I hope you will consider doing a definitive work about all the alternative processes.

Best wishes,

Bob Schramm