Subject: (urth) sepia and new tricks with old timelines

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 05:11:56 +0000

Adam Stephanides quoted me and wrote:
>> Is 1920 a good benchmark for natural sepia, for the clothing, for the
>> Lombard reference?
>
>All Miss Hadow says is that the girl's face reminds her of Carole Lombard,
>not the clothes or hairstyle; so the Lombard reference doesn't help to date
>the photo.

True; it mainly dates Miss Hadow, I guess.

Meanwhile, I've been fixing my sense of sepia.  Sepia is not an artifact of
aging (i.e., discoloration), it is only a style, one of two tones (sepia
and selenium) that actually =enhance= the stability of the print.  I
mistakenly thought it was both, that is, that there was "natural" sepia
(due to aging) and artificial sepia (which gave things a certain look as
well as a hint of antiquity).

That the photos are "faded" is the age indicator (as well as the fashion of
the clothing worn by the subjects . . . uh, those who are wearing
clothing).  That they are sepia points more toward the style question,
which still remains: when was "sepia vogue," that is, at what point in the
20th century did sepia tone prints drop out of fashion?

I was amazed to learn that the first Poloroid cameras in 1947 produced
sepia prints!  They developed b&w in 1950, but there was a crisis because
the photos faded rapidly and they had to scramble to come up with a new
formula.

Next up: new tricks with the timeline.  It would be really neat to have a
sequence of each section of the book with each subsection "date stamped."
So then one could see at a glance as Weer jumps from time to time.

I mention this because in trying to look up the announcement of the three
visitors (actually the two visitors while Bill Baton is with Weer), I saw
again as if anew the wonderful nested quality of it: the tale of Tilly told
by Smart; the mention of how Weer told the tale to Margaret (and then in
his dream Charlie the dog boy came between Weer and Margaret); then mention
of how he started to tell the tale to Bill Baton; and then the arrival of
Charlie himself . . . summoned by the thought, or so it seems! . . . and
Charlie kind of comes between Weer and Bill Baton in the office like he
came between Weer and Margaret in the dream.

Alden Dennis Weer
2274: frametale
1974: fat Weer goes to Dr. Van Ness
1920: Weer's birthday party, etc.
2274: Hannah and frametale
1953: thin Weer at Dr. Van Ness's office
1974: president Weer at Dr. Van Ness's office
1920: birthday party
2274: elm branches in the fire
1953: Dr. V
2274: exercise regimen; new races
1921: Christmas at grandfather's house
1920: Hannah tales
2274: frametale
1953: mirror test

Something like that, for starters.

=mantis=

--

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 18:44:32 +0000

> That they are sepia points more toward the style question,
> which still remains: when was "sepia vogue," that is, at what 
> point in the 20th century did sepia tone prints drop out of
> fashion?

While I don't have an answer to hand, one data point: in the
1939 film THE WIZARD OF OZ, sepia-tone (rather than standard
B/W) was used in the Kansas segments to give them a "dated" or 
antiquated feel, giving me the impression that sepia must have
been out of vogue for some time at that point -- by Hollywood
standards, that is, so at least a year or two.

--