From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 05/28/01-06:16:17 PM Z
On Sun, 27 May 2001, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
> My first love is getting a perfect print and then messing with it,
> kindof. (I still am trying to figure out if this is a compliment or an
> insult, but my students nicknamed me the Martha Stewart of photography).
Christina, if you can make a perfect print & then have the guts to "mess
with it" you're braver than I am. In fact that's one of the reasons I
began painting on silver gelatin -- to cover up a bobble. I did a long
ago interview with Betty Hahn where she said when one of the big
cyanotypes she was going to do handwork on came out perfect her assistant
got very excited, but it was actually a problem: "there was no place left"
to mess up !
I have checked out every book there is, and the only ones that come
> close to experimental photography are all outdated and not all inclusive,
> but still somewhat good...Stone's Darkroom Dynamics, Kodak's Creative
> Darkroom Techniques,
I got something worth the price from each of those -- Stone's book had the
only bit I ever saw in print on the *checkerboard* method of testing
sabatier... (before P-F, that is). If you think about it, when you know as
much as you do, adding just one fact more is actually a bigger deal than
when you didn't know anything.
> ... and several other books with the same sort of title.
> If James' new book, in fact, covers all these types of experimental things,
> then I'd be sort of relieved because I wouldn't have to do mine. Well, not
> really, because mine is basically
> written. I'll do it anyway.
But here's an even more important reason for doing your own -- a comment I
heard for the first time about P-F that stuck with me: most how-to's are
abstract, impersonal, "this is how it's done." Our personal manuals tend
to say "this is how *I* do it," with specific experience and decisions --
which is in fact MORE TRUTHFUL since there rarely is just one clear path.
But those qualifications and variables seem to be the sorts of things big
publishers obliterate for fear of the book looking uncertain or
complicated. This fellow was saying that that kind of personal input is
*better* -- helpful, engaging, educative. I would figure even MORESO when
it's your own teacher.
> .... Mine is short and sweet,
cheap,
> and full of enough info to screw around. Not perfect yet, tho---already,
> according to Prof Jolly and PFJ, I have to change my sabattier info
> drastically (history, mackie line technical info, "old brown" developer
> myth--great paper on the web if you haven't already found it). I do, BTW,
I wonder if that paper on the "old brown" developer myth you're talking
about is the one I read -- if so it's WRONG WRONG WRONG. I don't recall if
it was Jolly or Rainwater, but it says that the reason "old brown
developer" works is because the hydroquinone is worn out, and that his
solarol has no (or very little) hydroquinone, yatatyatata.... but the
dirtiest oldest brownest developer I ever used had ADDED hydroquinone and
did the best sabatier I ever made... something like an extra teaspoon per
tray, if memory serves. (It's in P-F #2.)
I tested, incidentally, against everything EXACTLY the same except the
developer was new -- it did "sabatier," but not anywhere near as
wonderful. The difference was almost certainly the silver in the old
developer, allowing for physical development -- but I digress....
The point, or *A* point, is that Jolly was doing one particular kind of
Sabatier, overall white light during development, which I think Solarol
handled well enough. But there are MANY possible permutations of when and
how exposure & re-exposure. The kind I was doing with the extra HQ, both
exposures THROUGH THE NEGATIVE, didn't like Solarol at all.
But this, to repeat a point I may possibly have made before, is typical of
the "experts" and exactly why we need more more more & the list: A guy
gets a reputation for maestro, usually by publication in the glossies,
when what he's really doing is generalizing from HIS particulars, which
more often than not lead him into false pastures. In fact often as not he
doesn't have a clue about any other pastures out there.
Speaking of which reminds me that I wrote a letter to Creative Darkroom &
Camera Techniques (whatever its name at the time) about some Sabatier
"rule" or other they perpetuated in print maybe 10 yrs ago -- which they
did not publish. Part of the glossy credo (or the Mike Johnston credo) was
"we do not correct our mistakes. What mistakes?" If they're still around,
I doubt they can get away with that in age of Internet -- tho of course
all the myth & mistake on the Internet, would require a team of univacs
working 7/24 to correct... tho I digress again.
> test everything I write about--wouldn't even consider writing a handout on a
> process I had not extensively tested. That, in fact, has taken precedence
> over everything else in my life all year....
> Chris
Not every one does this... :- )
best,
Judy
..........................................................................
| Judy Seigel, Editor >
| World Journal of Post-Factory Photography > "HOW-TO and WHY"
| info@post-factory.org >
| <http://rmp.opusis.com/postfactory/postfactory.html>
............................................................................
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 07/12/01-11:29:40 AM Z CST