Argyrotype

In a recent message to the alt-photo-process list I wrote the following:

"Well, I am certainly not surprised that someone has had trouble with
argyrotype. I tried this process with literally dozens of papers and
I never got anything close to decent Dmax with any of them. And if
the terribly expensive Buxton is the only paper in the world that
works decently with the process one would be much better off in terms
of expense to just make palladiums or platinums.

And besides, I can never spell the process correctly unless someone
leads me into it and I can cut and paste from their message, as I
have done here!!"

Today I received an off-list message from an apparent list lurker,
suggesting that two conclusions were self evident, one "you have been
doing something wrong", or 2) "you have been working with faulty
materials." The message went on to suggest that I "refrain from
gratuitously slagging-off proven processes in public, until you have
actually achieved an understanding of your materials, and can use
them correctly?" The message ended with a nasty personal cheap shot.
Since the person in question does not participate in this list I will
identify him only as someone, who suffers from the not uncommon
affliction known as LIHOM, i.e. "Legend in His/Her Own Mind, a rather
pathetic illness first described by the famous American cowboy Clint
Eastwood.

In an off-list answer to Mr. LIHON I addressed the issue of
argyrotype as follows:

"I had some initial success with argyrotypee but my resulting
experiences have proven it be extremely paper sensitive. The process
simply did not give satisfactory results with the great majority of
papers that I tried, and I tried a great many.

My conclusion is that since I am capable of making very nice prints
with a number of processes, including carbon, kallitype, vandyke and
pt/pd, the fact that I was not able to do so with argyrotype, in
spite of a considerable investment of time, is proof certain that any
advantages of the process relative to vandyke and other forms of
kallitype are far outweighed by its drawbacks. That is my opinion and
I will continue to express it as I see fit."

And to Mr. LIHON, should he be listening, may I suggest medication
for an inflated EGO.

Sandy King
Received on Fri Jan 9 18:47:10 2004