From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 03/05/03-11:31:01 PM Z
On Wed, 5 Mar 2003, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
> This is so strange--I had just brought my alt process class manual to
> Kinko's to print and bind a first rough draft, and I came to school the next
> day and lying on my desk was Paul Anderson's Pictorial Photography, its
> Principles and Practice. No note.
> I finally found out who had left it--after I thought it had fallen out
> of the heavens. It was another prof there who had found it in a stack of
> books in his garage, and he thought I might be interested in reading it; it
> cost him $4. He had no idea I was working thru this alt stuff! Anyway,
> that is making a very short story long, but it is funny how life happens
> like that. The book is dated 1917, Judy, not in the 30's. His proverbial
My book is "The Technique of Pictorial Photography," copyright [given in
this order] 1939, then next line copyright 1917, 1923, then "First
published under the title Pictorial Photography: Its Principles and
Practice."
The first paragraph of the foreword, dated 1939, starts:
"The present volume was originally planned as a revised edition of the
author's earlier work...But as soon as the work of revision was begun, it
became evident that since the appearance of the former book, in 1917,there
have been such a tremendous growth in interest in photography, such a vast
increase in the knowledge of technical processes..... etc. etc. as to
demand almost a complete re-writing..."
I notice BTW that he gives potassium bichromate sensitizer at 10%
strength, but still the sodium bichromate at 100%. For whatever or no
reason. The "speed" of even 5% potassium bichromate was still equivalent
to various printing out papers -- why it seemed a good thing to "increase
speed," say, exposing 5 minutes instead of 15, or whatever, isn't clear to
us today -- but then we probably think more of the contaminating & toxic
effects of the bichromate than he did in either 1917 or '39.
Anyway, Anderson says here, "the fundamental color most used is black, and
positive colors such as red, green, and blue are, generally speaking, to
be avoided for esthetic reasons..."
(Incidentally & FWIT, everyone writing in Camera Work also spells what we
generally spell today "aesthetic" as "esthetic.") Then of course we come
to the legendary "gum pigment ratio test," although he simply puts it
under "the Coating Mixture."
I mention here another significant, in fact prossibly critical Anderson
mistake -- in this book on page 262, #3: "Increasing the proportion of
pigment decreases contrast and gives a longer scale of gradation."
This is flat out wrong. OK, I guess I might be able to increase the
proportion of pigment, expose hard and then soak for two days & POSSIBLY
get a longer scale of gradation, but all other things being equal, more
pigment INCREASES contrast, because the darker steps block up & you get
fewer of them. With a long soak you can open up some of those blocked
steps, but THAT DOESN'T NECESSARILY extend the scale, because, depending
on the mix, it might simply wash away top steps at the same rate.
> he really does "judge" gum. He talks about tricolor gum printing as being
> ok, like what we do nowadays with separation negs and RGB or CMY. But this
> is what he says about freeform multi-color gum: "Some workers endeavor to
The thought of a print in ANY primary color would have caused the
pictorialists to faint dead away. They considered it vulgar in THE
EXTREME, and assumed you would too.
cheers,
Judy
> produce striking effects by printing in arbitrarily chosen colors from a
> single negative, shading portions of the negative while printing one color
> and the remainder of the negative while printing the other colors, or
> removing the first color from certain areas of the print by scrubbing with a
> stiff brush and allowing these portions to print in the second or third
> color, these in turn being removed from areas where they are not desired.
> The writer has never seen a print of this sort which possessed any artistic
> merit whatever or could be considered anything except thoroughly
> unsatisfactory."
> Little did he know there'd be a plethora of us unsatisfactory printers
> today.
> Chris
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Matti Koskinen" <mjkoskin@koti.soon.fi>
> To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 7:53 AM
> Subject: Re: gum printing papers
>
>
> > Thanks to all for your help.
> >
> > Apparently my working method wasn't the best for the cheap paper. I
> > tried to expose for 3x10 min development time. Now I exposed outside on
> > a cloudy day 10 mins and developed as long as it took, about 1.5 hrs.
> > The cheap paper works just fine, but the print is quite contrasty using
> > raw sienna pigment, whereas using ivory black shows much more tones.
> > Anyway, I'm making some progress (and encountering more problems :-)
> >
> >
> > thanks
> >
> > -matti
> >
> >
> > Heidi Weller wrote:
> > > Matti
> > > I use pastel paper, Canson Mi Teintes at about 88 cents per sheet for
> > > practice. This paper doesn't have the greatest wet strength, so you
> have to
> > > be careful, but it's cheap, and frequently available locally. I like
> the
> > > texture, and the off-white colors.
> > > Heidi
> > > Ashland, OH
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : 04/22/03-02:37:24 PM Z CST