Re: facts, feelings, wishes and swans...

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From: Christina Z. Anderson (zphoto@montana.net)
Date: 02/09/03-08:25:13 AM Z


<from Judy>
Oh my, Christina.... when Scopick said in just about so many words, "I
> don't see why Ms Seigel doesn't stick to her knitting, but has to meddle
> with what isn't her business, but if she had trouble doing my test she
> should have come to me privately and I would have helped her..." I
> wouldn't say that was, or was intended to be, kind -- in fact seemed to me
> snotty to the max.

I stand corrected.

<Judy, snips> As for HIS having tested the famed notorious ludicrous bizarre
mistaken
> unscientific gum-pigment ratio test, no he didn't.... unless you count
> DOING it as testing it, which hello, hello, it isn't. If I want to test a
> cold remedy, for instance, just giving the medicine isn't a "test." It has
> to be compared with a variable. The only meaningful test of something is
> to test it AGAINST something else, which he did not. And it's pretty
> shocking, say I, that I have to explain that, even to him, apparently.
> I would HAVE to say I hadn't "tested it" because it's impossible to test
> it just alone, on its own terms. To repeat, just DOING it isn't a test...
> You can do those gum extensions til cows fly, but unless you CHECK against
> the real thing, that is, using the dichromate, with DIFFERENT ratios and
> the exposure you have done nothing except grow older.
> And I certainly did establish the contrary, and put on page 46 of P-F #2.
> If anyone cares to visit I will show them the 21-steps. What I found was
> that TWICE the pigment gave LESS stain when exposed with dichromate and
> developed.

Yes, these are the two points I found interesting in the whole original
convo--that the orginial test was used with 100% dichro, and we were taught
in my class that the amount of pigment produced the stain, so to lessen the
pigment. This is why I read and reread all the stuff, and I have your steps
of testing to try.

Mike Ware and Joe Smiegel, yes i absolutely remember Mike. That makes it
3:4 :)

> But Christina, it is truly amazing how much bad info is circulated and
> "authoritative" -- this is endemic to alt photo in particular (and I don't
> think I've got a single book that doesn't say something I know for a fact
> is wrong... the only difference is the number and egregiosity of the
> errors).

Thank you, Judy, for getting my original point--the number and EGREGIOSITY
of error. When I wrote my Experimental Photography Workbook, I fretted all
the time if there were to be one PICKY detail wrong in there, and here I
find this to be the case all over tarnation! This semester, I had written
one sentence under my polaroid emulsion lift section that you could use type
664, 54, 804 etc (BW), although they take boiling and a 15 minute soak--in
other words, they require way more process than normal 59 films. Sure
enough, a student tried that and did not produce a final project because he
couldn't get it to work (slacker student--he did it the last week of class,
but nevertheless). I realized that I did not emphasize how hard it is to
do, so I am taking that statement out in my next revision. But I sure feel
bad about it.
>
<snips> Where is the alt photo research? Only us ! Judy

I agree--where would I be without this list?? Even with the occasional
grumps.
Chris


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