I didn't know Sally M was an ex-AA photographer. I liked her shots of her children, even though I sometimes felt sightly uncomfortable with how the wee girls were represented: making them look older is doubtful (to me). Having a daughter of my own who, as a child, spent much time in my studios holding up cards with 4, 5.6, 8, 11 etc. on them to check how well my flashmeter of the day (a Bowens!) agreed or disagreed with processed Ektachrome, I understand how easy it might be to manipulate kids, especially one's own. But in no way does that diminish her abilities (Sally's).
Jock Sturges I have never been able to like. I just don't see where his stuff is good.
To be honest, I'm not the world's authority on older photographers because apart from having looked at a few books, I was always absorbed in the doings of the current guys of my own time. I suppose I liked to know who was shooting what, how and with whom. It certainly paid dividends for me as an out-of-towner: I would generally do castings mainly with girls who'd already featured in productions that had appealed to me as a photographer. I've not been one to believe that I can spot a good model in the flesh: it always takes a test, and since I couldn't very well do that in London living in Glasgow, I was happy to accept that if Miss A could do it with Lichfield, she could do it with me; I never felt any sense of inferiority in that respect - I knew that I would be shooting my way and not anyone else's.
My photographic 'education' was derived from the pages of Vogue, Nova and Harpers as well as from the great Popular Photography Annuals of the 50s and even, I think, the early 60s. I was never into landscape or any of that stuff at all, which is something that turns out expensive now that I live in a world devoid of models. Well, expensive in terms of not having built up any sort of life-long, basic, personal liking for other genres than women.
It seems sort of tragic to shoot things that are just so-so in their appeal to one; it takes so much time sitting at a screen... but, one has to do something.
Bedtime.
Rob C
P.S. Looking for some 500 Series shots from which to clone the borders with 'blad triangles (no luck: only have them unmounted in b/w neg) for my new proposed game of shooting musos on 35 FF digi and then printing within 6x6-shaped areas, I came across some b/w glossies I'd made here in Mallorca on Ilford Multigrade; though I hated plastic papers as well as Multigrade, they still look superior to anything I've ever produced on digital paper. And to think that I thought my digi prints are excellent... how we can deceive ourselves when avoiding confrontations with some earlier methods.