Re: R: pigments and more

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From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 10/06/01-07:40:54 PM Z


On Sat, 6 Oct 2001, Alberto Novo wrote:
> I have found a Judy's post on 1995:
>
> > But what if we follow
> > Rand's health laws scrupulously and still succumb? The good news is
> > that even after death we can partake of photography. Here is a suggestion
> > from the 10th edition of that great classic "Photographic Amusements" by
> > Frapie and Woodbury.
> >
> > It's at the end of a section on "Photographs in Any Color," here in terms
> > of the "powder" or "dusting on" process:
> >
> >
> > "[This is] a plan of making 'post-mortem' photographs of cremated friends
> > and relations. A plate is prepared from a negative of the dead person in
> > the manner described, and the ashes dusted over. They will adhere to the
> > parts unexposed to light, and a portrait is obtained composed entirely of
> > the person it represents, or rather what is left of them." [p. 128.]
>
> The likeliness is very high indeed.
> However, all this is too gruesome to my personal feeling, as for me the
> airborne WTC dust is more similar to the soot of the Auschwitz chimneys than
> a simple earth pigment.

I know someone recently made a post-mortem photo of a dear departed, with
love & watered with tears, and thought that the dear departed would have
been enchanted, "smiling from heaven.".. My mother was a ceramist, and I
suspect would also have appreciated coating an urn. As for shades of
Auschwitz... I think it's the context & the intent, as it is in so much
that we do. After all, cremation is ever more popular, especially as we
run out of land for burial.

Friends of ours have chosen to have their ashes buried under a particular
tree, or at a beloved scene, shades of murder and burial? Again, I think
not. However, this dust is NOT a pigment (and ash in general functions
quite differently in the dust-on "post-mortem" print). When I spill some
of that powder pigment from Kremer, it coats the table, the sponge, and
environs and can hardly be washed clean. The "dust" disappears when
touched with a damp cloth, or the finer part we get up here does.

Judy


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