Re: Argyrotype

Geez, Sandy, it sounds like he's a classical "Type A Personality" — the
Arrrggghhh Type

It just goes to show that you can say what you want about people's spouses,
children, religion, cars, etc....but never cast dispersions on their dog or
their favorite alt photo process....

Besides, I thought when you said that you were talking about Gum....

Mark Nelson

In a message dated 1/9/04 6:52:08 PM, sanking@clemson.edu writes:

>
> 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 21:53:51 2004