When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school...

Adding, I don't take a2kers as a whole as one dimensional. I could go on and on about that. I can see getting that idea, though.

We are, of course, off topic, or maybe not. Photography is about apprehension of the world around us, one way or another.

I'm curious, (not to put words in your mouth): might photography be about apprehension of the world or is it anticipation?

You had me questioning my sanity so this morning I looked it up -- both fixative and salad bar preparations contain sulfites:

Fix: Poisonous Ingredient:

* Hydroquinones
* Quinones
* Sodium thiosulfate
* Sodium sulfite/bisulfite
* Boric acid

Salad bar:

Sulfites are sulfur-based preservatives used to prevent or reduce discoloration of light-colored fruits and vegetables, prevent black spots on shrimp and lobster, inhibit the growth of microorganisms in fermented foods such as wine, condition dough, and maintain the stability and potency of certain medications.

“Salad Bar Syndrome” (I just hate this!) is caused by sulfite sprays used on vegetables and lettuce at the salad bar. . When I see salad that glistens, I pass on the bar. Often the glistening is from dipping the lettuce in a Metabisulfite preservative to keep it looking fresher, longer. I know what’s in store for me if I don’t catch that glistening—nausea, increased stomach gurgling (borborygmous) and a slight asthma attack.

http://www.naturalhealthtechniques.com/diet_nutrition/sulfites.htm

Thanks for your diligence with this issue. I'm grateful for that info and the correction. As I'm cautious about the food I put in my mouth, I always recommend the practice of doing the same to my friends and family. I'll take this info into advisement. I'm neither a chemist (only a former lab-ray/darkroom junkie), nor an allergist. However, not to be a devil's advocate, I plucked this from info the website you listed:

"The FDA estimates that 1% of people are sulfite-sensitive and 5% of those also suffer from asthma."

That being said, I would rather NOT have fixer (or it's relatives) in my body. Over the years, I've personally drifted away from eating at salad bars due to another reason: my perception of food handlers carelessness and inconsistent, haphazard treatment with handwashing, cross-contamination, germs, etc. I feel THAT behavior is the bigger risk, but who needs one more possible irritant or allergy and/or nausea-producing agent in the chain?

Perhaps salad bars could just add lemon or lime juice and leave it at that? It works for me when I cut up apples and/or other fruit. Salad bars are even further off my list.

Thanks. I wasn't so much doubting you as I was being incredulous that one more segment of food chain might be tainted for even a small percentage of the public.

I knew where you were coming from! I couldn't believe it when I first smelled it on salad either. I don't think I have an allergy to it (lord knows I probably ate without properly washing my hands after working in a darkroom) but was just kind of creeped out by it.

I was just questioning my memory -- which was very distinct on this particular thing -- and wondering if or why I might be misremembering. It must be the sulphur from which the sulfates are derived which gives off that distinctive smell.

But speaking of sulphur.... when I was a kid we'd drive to see my mom's family and pass through an Oklahoma town named Sulphur that was famous for it's sulphur springs. The whole town smelled absolutely awful!

But the Dairy Queen's menu was written in Cherokee so that always made the stop fun.

I probably have photos of that menu stashed away somewhere!

Your memory is fine. And you're wise to call attention to that problem.

My comparison to this OK experience, for that distinct chemically sulphur smell, was driving on the I-95 through northern NJ around the time of the mid-'60s.

Almost appropos of nothing, have you ever heard of the term 'codetalkers'?
Cherokee, along with other Native American languages, was used during WWII to encode wartime messages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker

"Other Native American code talkers were deployed by the United States Army during World War II, including Cherokee, Choctaw, Lakota[1] Meskwaki, and Comanche soldiers."

My daughter-in-law worked in the fish department of a local supermarket for a time. The salad bar was in view of the fish market. People continually put their fingers into the piles of food to snitch pieces of whatever. Some even tried the two-handed, gobbling technique. My dil would yell at them, but, as she's only 5 feet tall and weighs 90 pounds, she isn't much of a threat.

Grandfather had had a dark room in the cellar of his drugstore ('droguerie', "Drogerie und Fotohandlung"), but it wasn't usded anymore after since WWII.

However, the first photos I've ever taken were taken with his old camera, a 'Rolleicord" (Rolleicord I Model 2 [Zeiss Triotar 3.8/75mm; Finder lens: Heidosmat Anastigmat 4/75mm], made in 1935 according to the serial number).



When I went to grammar school, we had a dark room there, but couldn't do roll fims.
So I got a few 'normal' Agfa cameras over the years, learnt to develop and print colour films, ....

... only to do "secret photos" (a different story, but I really got 'NATO Secret clearance) as conscript in the navy.

Didn't do any dark room work afterwards. (Which actually had nothing to do with the navy job.)

My first SLR was a (GDR) 'Praktika' (due to the price).
Changed it later with a couple of lenses to a Nikon 601M before I got my Nikon D200 six years ago. (And I will update that either to a D700 or a D700 in May/June when I'm in the USA again.)

What I do still use for films is not my own but father's camera, a Zeiss Contaflex (similar to the one I had in the navy as 'official camera')



Now, this camera has a rather peculiar funny accessory



It's actually a telezoom, not a telescope

Thinking about that: we could do roll films, but only printing them. (However, due to the format - 6x 9 - everything had to changed. So I was only able to do it on Saturdays, in the early evening. And in those years, I had something different to do then ... )

Walter:

Thanks for sharing. Very cool. I'm reasonably familiar with all of those either by reputation or directly, though touching and/or selling them while working in photo retail.

BTW, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER HOLDING OFF ON PURCHASING A NIKON D-700 MODEL PENDING THE POSSIBLE NEW RELEASE OF THE HIGHER PIXELS COUNT UPDATED MODEL, WHICH HAS BEEN IN RUMOR STAGE FOR 2 YRS. I'VE BEEN EYE-ING WITH TECHNO-LUST THE D700 FOR THAT LONG, TOO. REGARDLESS, WHEN THE MODEL UPDATE DOES HIT, IT MOST LIKELY WILL DROP THE PRICE OF THE D-700 TO A MORE REASONABLE LEVEL.

I've handled the Rolleicord, too. My medium format TLR Rolleiflex 3.5 F is its first cousin but newer by 25 yrs - about 1965-ish. As a portrait and scenic imager-maker it's top-notch. FWIW, quite a few famous images of Marilyn Monroe and other celebrities from 1950-1970 were taken with such a Rolleiflex. Of course, as with the case of MM, she could've been photographed with a Brownie and it would have been spectacular.

All of those others cameras are nice sharp image-takers, too. Zeiss makes insanely good optical glass as does Schneider, Nikon, Rodenstock, etc. Many large format 4x5 and larger cameras and optical enlargers use both Zeiss and Schneider glass.

But, I digress. Thanks for sharing. That was fun stroll down the oldies aisle.
Back to watching Morgan Freeman narrate this 'Through the Wormhole: Mutant Planet program on Science channel on cable.

I think Walter's family was wealthier than most families in those days; none of us kids had any access to any camera - as I can remember, until I went into the service and bought my own, but that was already in my early 20's. Since then, I've owned several dozen cameras starting with my first real camera, the Canon A1 that I bought in Tokyo on our first visit to Japan in the early eighties. I had two lenses for that camera.

I now lug around a Canon digital, but it's an SX1IS with a 20X zoom that I bought to take with me to the Peru Amazon in May of last year. I used that camera and two others on my recent trip to India in November-December. Still not 100% happy with the pictures, but maybe it's the photographer's fault. LOL

I meant seeing, seeing is what made me shoot and I am quick at that, but in some fair amount of my own photos, I didn't see at length until I saw the prints.

I suppose you all know by now I had a rolleicord. I am not sure I saved any of the photos. That would have been near sixty years ago, when I was a dumpling.

... and that is exactly what I mean, too.

The anticipation of seeing (you called it apprehension) - the action or the whole layout..or inter-relationship of how all the scene's elements hook together. If it's action, then it's the decisive moment. If it's a scenic, it's the way the light hits the key subject or how exactly the shadows fall creating and directing interest within a selective focus.

An old photog friend mine said (re equip't/technical fol-de-rol), "there's hardware, software and then there's wetware (stuff between the ears). All that really mattered for certain in the end is the 'wetware'." He's right, but I still luvs mah toys!

All the crap I learned in art classes, photo classes, pales in comparison to what I saw from my own prints as they come up in the soup in the darkroom. That is what directs me to the 'payday'...the meat of what I want to say.

All this gels together in the soup in my head. I think looking at 1000s of my own image as they developed in the soup I learned about equip't or techy stuff. It made my mind gravitate to what really mattered in the composition...to what I really wanted to say.

Ramble, ramble, ramble. Back to watching 'The Hoosiers' for the 10th time.

The end of an era passed by in Kansas City yesterday.
Tempus Fugit.

A Google search of the three color photo technique yields interesting reading. For example, there's one about
early 1900s color photography which
existed before Eastman Kodak made color photography available to the masses.