The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Judy Seigel has now ceased publication of the superb magazine The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography. Some issues can still be bought second hand or from Judy Seigels daughter Jessica, and Issue 1 can be read for free here.

Issue 1 of The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography is available to download here FREE of charge. Beware, the pdf file is a little over 10 Mb, so if you have a slow internet connection, this may take some time.

Click here to download Issue 1 of The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

The remaining 8 issues of The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography can be ordered from Jessica Seigel – Judy Seigel’s daughter – by emailing postfactoryjournal@gmail.com. Not all issues are available. Currently issues 5-9 are available.

Here is how to order

Below are the prices for the issues, which are all new and pristine in their boxes, that are presently available:

• $10.00 per individual issue (#6,#7,#8,#9)
• $37.00 package discount for 4 issues (#6,#7,#8,#9)
• $45.00  package discount for all five issues (#5,#6,#7,#8,#9)
• Issue #4 is also currently available (as a stapled photocopy of the original) for $10.00, which is the copying cost.

If you are interested in ordering, please include shipping costs, which is $8.00 anywhere in the US. We are accepting payment as a friend account, not a business, through Paypal account postfactoryjournal@gmail.com. Thank you for calculating the payment,  including postage and sending amount as well as your address and any other details. For overseas shipping, unfortunately USPS does not offer economical “media” rates. The USPS mailing cost to Sao Paulo is $49.45 and to Sydney is $48.95.  Any other location will need to be specifically investigated, delaying shipping. Thanking you in advance for your patience. 

Any questions to postfactoryjournal@gmail.com.

Issue 1: The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Published in Spring ’98

The masthead proclaims, **** How-2 & Y ****
FREE-RANGE PHOTOGRAPHY… INTER-ACTIVE MINITEXTS…
COMMENTARY ON ISSUES AND IDEAS… PAST LIVES…
NEGATIVE THINKING… FACTS… SECRETS

Early promo promises, EXPLANATIONS, REFLECTIONS, REVELATIONS
Facts, Formulas, Short Cuts, Long Cuts
Pros will love it, BEGINNERS NEED IT.
Nowhere else in print. Nowhere else, mostly.

“Post-Factory Photography,” the concept, is explained in a lead article, followed by “Les Procedes d’Art en Photographie,” an essay of 1906. Co-authors Puyo and Demachy were eloquent, passionate, and confident. This never-before-in-English manifesto of Pictorialism is an unsung gem of photo history.

After that, a feature on “Gum Control” includes Basic Gum Bichromate, a step-by-step how-to with formulas and illustrations, from choosing paper to multi-coat registration, nine pages of authoritative, time- and student-tested ways to enter this amazingly flexible “post-factory” process.

“Quantum Mechanic/Quantum Magic” presents Professor Bob Schramm’s detailed guide to “Fish Heads,” a striking Vandyke brown print on artist’s canvas, plus his reports on four VDB formulas, and what it was like to meet an admiring public in a gallery talk (“fun,” actually).

Other features are “Drawing on the Right Side of the Computer,” with Carmen Lizardo, and John Metoyer’s “Vandalous Dreams of Blue” in New Cyanotype, seen in the new John Wood book (reviewed), and at the new Platinum Gallery, New York. Negative Thinking follows — 11 pages of “Sense and Sensitometry” tell (1) how to make the H&D Curve your slave, and (2) how to make perfect enlarged negatives without a densitometer. Illustrated and annotated, the article includes a comprehensive rundown of 17 options for enlarged negatives. [This feature has probably been most cited by readers as helpful, although the gum article runs a close second.]

Somewhere in there is a cameo of “The St. Louis and Canadian Photographer,” a magazine of 100 years ago today, March 1898. “Answer Person” answers some good questions and has a good trick. Another article, “Analog Woman in Digital Hell,” goes beyond mere autobiographical whining to timely excerpts from newspaper stories that explain why your hard drive crashes.

The finale is four pages of alt-photo Sources and Services, 68 places to get everything — the cheapest, the best, the most, the hardest to find, the familiar and the semi-secret — with tips like the right fluorescent bulb (avoid a costly mistake), supermarket options, and a special offer on silver nitrate for Post-Factory readers.

Issue 2: The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Published in October ’98

Issue #2 of the World Journal of Post-Factory Photography is a monster 52 pages. Yes, it’s too big, but it’s timely, essential information. How much can you cut? Dave Soemarko’s article on taming lith film will make a lot of difference to a lot of people, as will Liam Lawless’s method for direct reversal (“Eliminate the Interpositive”). Both use cheap APH lith, with standard developer or mix-your-own from standard chemicals. Both get the desired scale with “good detail at each end.”

Cor Breukel’s “Confessions of A Photographic Omnivore” is a tale every one of us can relate to. The same for Klaus Pollmeier’s report on the Drtikol Reprint Project. Whether you do carbon transfer all day or never, his article is an education and inspiration, as are his illustrations.

We also meet Frantisek Drtikol, one of the most piquant characters and compelling artists in photo history. SEE HIS NAKED POWER BABES! Alas, the larger naked-babe situation is not good. A recent book of essays on photography has a chapter titled “The Naked Truth: No Subject is Politically Incorrect.” We find most of the book politically incorrect. Our review is titled, “Curdling the Blood in Everyday Life.”

John Rudiak’s review of the so-called “Ansel Adams Guide: Basic Techniques of Photography, Book 2,” curdles the blood differently. Rudiak says he “wore out a highlighter” underlining the book’s mistakes, but “won’t bore the reader with more.” I underline even more mistakes in the gum chapter — bad ones — but trust I do not bore the reader either, since I add much excellent info. (See also, “One Little Test,” and “How to Cheat at Gum,” p. 45.)

Ed Buffaloe mourns the passing of Brovira #5, but his how-to on the fascinating “Classic Sabatier, Updated and Split-Toned” cites several new papers, and new possibilities — with bibliography, formulas, and spelling (only one “t” in Sabatier, please). My own article on Sabatier presents a little-known technique, and reveals that the official explanation of the effect needs work. So what else is new?

There’s new and old in Mixed Sabatier, a “portfolio” full of ideas, including an entirely new way to get the effect, discovered by Jerry Uelsmann. There’s even a color tip-in of some tasty Sabatier effects. Have you noticed the mix of technique and critique, theory and history here? There’s also a rave review of the new book, “Photography, An Independent Art,” from the Victoria and Albert; the Negative Thinking Department with “tips, experience, and inventions” for Dealing With Sheet Film; Sources and Services, now 5 pages; and what should be the last word on Ockham’s Razor, the theory. Headlined “Nothing is EVER Simple, Stupid!,” this rundown on alt photo science quotes the International Journal for the Philosophy of Chemistry on all that nature-is-economical and rule-of-parsimony jazz.

Issue 3: The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Published in May ’99

POST-FACTORY #3 was notable for “Make your own Gold Trichloride,” which turned out to be surprisingly controversial. More widely practiced were 29 pages on silver gelatin toning: expert instruction in the all-time classics, secret formulas for the great exotica (for instance William Mortensen’s “Secrets of Metalchrome” and Judy Seigel’s *formerly* secret formula for Halochrome), the odorless and the odiferous, the direct and the bleach-and-redevelop, as well as stain removers and intensifiers. Other “intensifiers” included the lead essay, “Violating the Medium through Photo History,” which put the methods in context, and “Looking for William Mortensen,” still causing fallout.

A totally non-controversial feature of #3 was an ode to coat-it-yourself silver gelatin emulsion in a bottle sung by a former platinum printer. The feature included as well a rundown on handling the process, a survey of currently available brands, and a reprint of a 1950 article in words and photos about an early version with the snappy name of “D.U.C. Projection Sensitizer.”

Favorite Reader this issue pronounced #3 “a perfect combination of technicalia and artspeak,”” adding, “I don’t recall a publication that blends these two seeming opposites so well.”

Issue 4: The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Published in January 2000

48 pages of info, inspiration, history, and news.

The theme of this issue, “Beauty from Poison,” begins on page one with “Creative Swords into Ploughshares.” Dallas Simpson, a “certified chemist,” tells in both poetic and human terms why risk is central to art. Following, Professor Bob Schramm takes us step-by-step into daguerreotypy in all its ineffable beauty and fraught complexity. We marvel that early workers achieved their mastery from written texts. No workshops, no web sites, and, horrible to contemplate, no masks and fume hoods !

Sandy King lays out “The Mystery and Science of Pyro,” tracing its history, eclipse, and revival, as well as its seven major formulas. The “mystery,” we learn, is true scientific fact. Then, speaking of poison, readers will enjoy visiting (or revisiting) “The Gold Flap” in tranquility — the alt-photo-process-list drama about the “Make Your Own Gold Chloride” article in Issue 3, even better in condensation. In “”wo from the Gold Field,” Dennis Fielding and Cor Breukel relate their adventures in making gold chloride. The verdict: “It’s easy.”

The Negative-Thinking department this issue has many Negative Constructions: “constructed” and “cameraless” negatives, from Talbot’s first cliche verre (before we had the term) to the digital printer and copy machine. Paper negatives, traditional and innovative, waxed or not, are elucidated as well; we also celebrate, sort of, the “pictorialist” paper negative and “salon aesthetic” that gave Nancy Newhall such fits. (A reader says she’s assigning her “Photo Innovation” class the article as text.)

The “straight” paper neg gets its due as the *easiest* way to a truly photographic large negative. But the best *rendering* of the enlarged negative may be reversal. Liam Lawless adds the crowning touch to his lith reversal: “one flash fits all.”

In “Kinetic Tin Toning,” Dallas Simpson reveals details of his magical transformation of tin, here “optimized for mirror printing” (also for metaphor). Lawless’s “Fun and Games with Blue Toner” puts together ordinary-seeming formulas in extraordinary ways. Intensely beautiful colors by relatively simple means (including an “iron-Sabatier effect”) not only bring the photograph to another plane, they are widely adaptable.

Sarah Van Keuren’s review of Mike Ware’s “Cyanotype,” a once-over of history and issues, is itself an acute essay. Bernice Halpern Cutler describes “Brush Sabatier,” then adds what should be the last word on “artists’ statements.” My own homily, “What is Beauty?” is an homage to alt-photo, an anti-homage to Harvard Magazine’s “sump of sloppiness” on beauty, and a look at Adobe Corp’s rendering of “Triangle-in-Eyeball Disease,” among other observations.

See also, “Hand Blown off by Flash Powder,” reprinted from the St. Louis and Canadian Photographer, March 1903; “Analog Woman in Scuzzy-Chain Hell” will speak to any photographer bounced from satanic scanner to brain-dead tech support, and much (actually too much) more. Last, but definitely not least, Sources and Services is reorganized and expanded, now with 93 providers in the US and a growing section of NOT in the USA.

Issue 5: The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Published in August 2000

Somehow Issue #5 never got properly “profiled”; suffice to say it had everything in the known universe about cyanotype, from demystifying the formulas, to response of papers, solid, usable, *tested* info on toning, and profiles of two of the world’s most brilliant and beloved cyanotypists. That’s not even mentioning serious features on make-your-own-printing-out paper, building a light table, multi-pinhole, and a reverie on Julia Margaret Cameron (including “the door that swings both ways”!), the editor’s *extended* reply to A.D. Coleman on the so-called “Mortensen Conspiracy,” and much much more — that is, another dire overflow… for a total of 52 treasure-packed pages.

Issue 6: The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Published in June 2001

Issue #6 has a disarmingly frank interview with Lyle Rexer, author of the forthcoming “Antiquarian Avant-Garde: The New wave of Old Process Photography”; Modern Ways of Bromoil and Bromoil Express by one of the old masters of the process; Casein Printing by a new master of the process; Mirror-Silver Toning of Silver Gelatin with notes from the inventor and two contemporary practitioners; Serious One-Coat Gum, plus a review of the Gum Wars (and related pieces); Profiles of Four Remarkable Gummists (with a color insert); Lith Film In-Camera; Easy “Light” Carpentry; a charming William Mortensen memoir, and updated Sources and Services, among a bunch of other info — not to mention the “Test Your Photo-History IQ Quiz” on the front page (*nobody* gets them all !).

Issue 7: The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Published January 2002

• Interview with Christopher James about “The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes,” plus excerpts from same;
• At Camp Tintype with John Coffer, the National Tintyper Laureate;
• Oleobrom Process in the 21st Century (bromoil with rollers);
• The Power of Gold (toning) ;
• Plating-Out toner for Silver Gelatin;
• WTC graphic evidence;
• The 20 by 24 Experience;
• A Long Slow Process (to gum);
• Sculptor Smashes Angel;
• “Photographic Possibilities” (review);
• On Toning Cyanotype (some surprises);
• Low-tech test for your UV System;
• Photographing an Aeroplane (1910);
• My own essay, “The Wise and Foolish Versions of Everything, Including the Gender of Angels and the History of Photography” plus Sources & Services (4 pages, type smaller than ever), and some short items not in table of contents.

Issue 8: The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Published in March 2003

Issue #8 has some of P-F’s best material yet (said she modestly): John Dugdale and Dan Levin do “Albumen Liberation”; Carmen Lizardo compares kallitype and VDB, evaluating developers and toners, and a near-miraculous new contrast control. An interview with Jill Enfield runs through the details of her new alt-process book (and recommends it); my own article on digital negatives by inkjet printer profiles five substrates and how to curve them, along with much other “Advice from a Beginner.” Arthur Gottschalk explains that “The Magic is Black” at John Coffer’s Wet-Plate Collodion Workshop; and Liam Lawless’s discovery-invention of “Unsalt Saltprints” may just change many folks’ medium of choice, while painstaking tests of cyanotype toners in “the literature” unravel a mystery. There are also pages of Loose Info, Some Book Reviews, and more, more else than I can think of now, in another monster 52-page issue.

Issue 9: The World Journal of Post-Factory Photography

Published in April 2004

First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the EXPERTS / John Yang Goes to Extremes/ The POP Experience/ Yang on POP/ Portfolio Review (an expose by Diana Bloomfield) / The 20th Century Vision Thing/ Knud Knudsen’s Love Affair with Norway/ Une Visite a l’Atelier Fresson/ The Search for Fresson/ Gerard Aniere: Carbro Prints from “Scratch”/ CarboGel and Carbon-Q / Bromoiling on Aluminium / Another Kind of Solarization / METRIC: What Americans Don’t Want to Know / The Measure of All Things / More Books: [Copper Plate Photogravure / Book of Carbon and Carbro /Precision Digital Negatives/ Experimental Photography Workbook / Non-silver Manual] / An Evening with Mrs. Kasebier at Holland Day’s Studio / Lou Spitalnick, POP/ Tweaking the Digital Negative / Chemical Solarization/ Copper as Printing-out Process / Platinum-Palladium Guide / Ernestine Ruben goes to the Ends of the Earth…. Finds Gum Joy / Gum Contrast: A Different Light / Gum Buckramate/ Engineering Gum Bichromate/”picture book”: bound prints by David Vestal / William Mortensen On Midtones and Back to the Future.