new alt process--gelatin silver

Hello!
Man oh man has the list been quiet of late, so I thought I'd share a
maddening comment made at a panel.

The panel was in Washington DC at a conference I was at, the third of three
this spring. Never again. Anyway, it was a printmaking conference (as in
silkscreen, mezzotint, that kind of printmaking) with very prestigious
people on the panel, including the curator of prints and photography of the
Library of Congress, two of the printmakers for big mane artists, an art
editor from Art in America, and it was held at the Library of Congress.

One of the panel members was talkiing about this or that and said,
offhandedly, "And there are even some schools that teach wet darkroom,
still--I mean, hello, wet darkroom is DEAD." He was a bit less vernacular
than I. NO ONE in the room nor the other panel members corrected him--they
all nodded knowingly.

Granted, this was not a photography conference, but I was pretty shocked as
I watched myself become a dinosaur. I figure within my lifetime, gelatin
silver will be added as a suitable topic for this alt list.

BTW, the Library of Congress has 100,000 prints in their collection. When I
asked the curator if there were any gum prints I could see, she did not know
what I was talking about. Sigh.
Chris
Received on Thu Apr 7 07:42:28 2005