Is my home color killing me? lol

[Poisson Du Jour]

Studies that look at people and their habits have linked vegetarian diets with a decreased risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and colon cancer.]

Not entirely true; individual/familial predisposition to cancer, hypertension etc., is a major trigger, not solely what is consumed. Randomised studies often do not have control references in them unless over a very large population sample, and often biased with ethnicity factors. Besides which, all things in moderation.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I'm not gonna bother going thru the whole damn thread, but anyone who handles color chemistry without gloves and good ventilation is a fool. I know a couple of commercial lab owners who can't
even walk into their own building due to sensitization; and one needed multiple lung surgeries. It seems that "artistes" have the same mentality as chain smokers and think it's cool to take known
risks. I've sure seen my share of them ruin their health over the years. I've been very cautious, but
despite that, just from cumulative very small amts of exposure, now have to do my color processing outdoors. I load the drum in the dark, but the processor itself is on a movable cart which I push outside in suitable weather. There are reasons MSDS sheets exist.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Drew, call me a fool then. Back when I was about 12 and started color processing, you could not easily get any sort of protective gloves, and where could a 12 year old get a ventilator for the darkroom (really the fruit cellar)? We could not get this type of stuff even in my later teens.

When in a hurry, I still can do some items without gloves, and I never use a mask.

All color chemistry has become safer over the years. No more dichromate, ferricyanide, formalin, t-BAB, well I could go on.

PE

 

[Prof_Pixel]

I started color processing in my mid-teens and the only time I had any problems was during the RX chemistry days at Kodak when I had some dermatitis issues on my hands; the company doctors thought it was probably the CD-6 and not the Cohex. (Of course, I never had such problems when I started working on digital projects. ;- )

 

[Photo Engineer]

And yet, the doctors cleared CD6. Just goes to show you.

PE

 

[EASmithV]

How about bw developers? Are they still skin sensitizers? If so, much less?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Plenty of people have gotten dermatitis from metol. Plain ole stop bath can get to your lungs, esp if
you are diluting it down grom glacial acetic without good ventilation. I work in an industry where everyone used to "tough it" with respect to chemicals - lots of them aren't around any more at my age! No excuse in this day and day to plead ignorance or not have a box of disposable gloves around. And digital - well, in mfg of course. Silicon Valley has a gigantic toxic groundwater problem
right now. But in printing use, yeah ... enough exposure to glycol fumes and you can indeed get
sensitized. Inkjet ink is fulla them. And I wouldn't make a habit of drying big inkjet prints in an unventilated room. They're steadily being phased even out of housepaints. Not an ingredient to panic
about by any means. Eating potato chips every day is probably more hazardous. But yeah, I know
folks who have gotten seriously sensitized to low levels of glycols year after year.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I think allergic reactions that make you aware of issues is a good thing. What I'm really afraid of are cumulative toxins that aren't excreted which show up as cancer or other diseases later. I have 2 photo professors that died at a young age. It's rumored that both have died from years of chemical exposure. One died from ALS and another died from brain cancer. I don't live in fear, but I'm not foolish with chemicals either.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

I'm alergic to my ex-wife... and she gave me dermatitis somewhere. I won't touch the stuff anymore. That reaction was quite caustic... to my brain, I mean.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Hope you recovered from your dermatitis. Anyway, it's a good to avoid toxic people and toxic chemicals.

 

[DREW WILEY]

That's part of the problem ... things which are officially nontoxic can become sensitizers which are
potentially very serious, even leading to potentially fatal anaphylactic shock. I see this esp with
people who work with epoxy and polyester resins (if they actually outlive the carcinogens, that is!).
The other big problem is that all these things are hypothetically tested EPA or FDA or whatever
individually, and obviously not in all the jillions of ways they can potentially interact. So downwind
from our refineries in this area the same cities are getting residential water from rivers flowing thru
pesticide-laden farmlands, and the cumulative effect per cancer rates is significantly in excess of
what the isolated ingredient hazard would seem to be. Plain lung irritation can be another issue. I
always hate to color print if there are common colds going around. No matter how careful I am,
I'm just way more susceptible if my lungs are a little irritated, whether from a bit of color bleach,
or from some neighbor illegally burning salvaged lumber in their fireplace. I must be doing something
right, cause I haven't taken a sick day from work in over three years, though I've had a few minor
colds. (will keep my fingers crossed)

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

Hope you recovered from your dermatitis. Anyway, it's a good to avoid toxic people and toxic chemicals.

I just never let things develop past a certain point anymore.

From age 13 up through my late 30's I often had my bare hands in various chemistry. Even after 20 years or so my cuticles never recovered.

 

[Photo Engineer]

What else can cause severe allergies?

Antistat rags in the dryer, deodorants, brighteners and scents in laundry detergents, latex gloves, and common household molds and fungi. Of course there is dust mite dust, skin flakes and the grand total for common dermatological tests number 60. And this is just for things around the house!

I would not worry about most of the photographic chemicals when faced with hundreds of irritants.

Oh, and the photo companies eliminated formalin from coatings and process solutions so we are only exposed to it wen we buy a new shirt or new furniture. Formalin is used in glues, paints and sizing materials that give us permanent press shirts.

PE

 

[removed account4]

What else can cause severe allergies?

Antistat rags in the dryer, deodorants, brighteners and scents in laundry detergents, latex gloves, and common household molds and fungi. Of course there is dust mite dust, skin flakes and the grand total for common dermatological tests number 60. And this is just for things around the house!

I would not worry about most of the photographic chemicals when faced with hundreds of irritants.

Oh, and the photo companies eliminated formalin from coatings and process solutions so we are only exposed to it wen we buy a new shirt or new furniture. Formalin is used in glues, paints and sizing materials that give us permanent press shirts.

PE

its kind of funny, isn't it ron ?

people are very worried about photochemistry,
its toxicity, its potential harm, its allergic affect
all sorts of troubles it may cause ...
but many of potentially harmful things have
been removed from the ingredients ...
and regular "household" or widely used products
like detergents, clothing, dryer sheets, nail polish even antibiotics
have things in them that used to cause "trouble" when part of the photographic landscape.

i guess like everything, moderation is the key ?

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

PE, I think my problem was made much worse when I sepia toned about thirty 16x20 prints when I worked for the AF back in the early 90's. I couldn't wear gloves because the prints were so slippery. It was the old rotten egg stuff. It took a very long time and I did it on my own time in my own back yard. My hands swelled to what seemed like twice their size and they were numb for days. After that they cracked and bled for awhile. My cuticles have never been the same.

BTW, these were copies of historic photos and publications to display at the local HQ. I used 4x5 with various films and processing techniques to produce decent quality reproductions. Many of these would have been a challenge for some people to make decent copies of. What pisses me of to this day is how they drooled over the color snapshots done by a hack showing the (then) current locations of the copied images. He just pointed and clicked on medium format color and they paid a local lab for prints. The reaction to the B&W was, "meh". They didn't have a clue regarding skill level of either task nor the time and effort nor the pain-in-the-neck... or hands.

We all have similar stories though.

Anyway, I do think the extended time in sepia toner is what caused most of the damage to my hands.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

PE, I think my problem was made much worse when I sepia toned about thirty 16x20 prints when I worked for the AF back in the early 90's. I couldn't wear gloves because the prints were so slippery. It was the old rotten egg stuff. It took a very long time and I did it on my own time in my own back yard. My hands swelled to what seemed like twice their size and they were numb for days. After that they cracked and bled for awhile. My cuticles have never been the same.

Sodium sulfide solutions are very caustic almost as alkaline as sodium hydroxide. You may have suffered chemical burns which would account for the cracking and bleeding.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

How about bw developers? Are they still skin sensitizers? If so, much less?

Both paraphenylenediamine and orthophenylenediamine are powerful sensitizers and can cause severe blistering in sensitive individuals besides cross sensitizing people to metol and the color developing agents. This is why I try to discourage people from using some of the older fine grain developers that contain these chamicals or their salts. These developers really have no place considering the fine grain of today's emulsions.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Wouldn't that leave barrier-cream residue on everything touched?

No, after applying the cream you wash off any excess. The cream bonds with the skin and protects for two hours IIRC after which time it should be reapplied. BTW, Photographer's Formulary sells the cream and so do many pharmacies.

Rubber gloves are not completely impervious to some chamicals. Awhile ago a young researcher using methylmercury died a very slow and unpleasant death from a single drop of this chemicals on her rubber glove. She thought she was protected and did not immediately remove the contaiminated glove.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I'm alergic to my ex-wife... and she gave me dermatitis somewhere. I won't touch the stuff anymore. That reaction was quite caustic... to my brain, I mean.

I would have posted something similar, but recently I got spanked by one of the distaff APUG members.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, the trick in some of these posts is to find a good wife that is worth hanging on to! I was lucky or smart!

Now for chemistry, I have seen people using barrier creams who have bad dermatitis in spots. It is difficult to say what causes this or what is the problem, but they are NOT as good as gloves.

As for household chemicals, IDK, I know that the photo industry is ahead of them.

PE

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

I would have posted something similar, but recently I got spanked by one of the distaff APUG members.

I'm not embarrassed to admit that I enjoy a good spanking now and then. No harsh chemicals involved though... and nitrile gloves are always a good idea for safety. Protect yourself from bad stuff... and always wash thoroughly.

Seriously, there are surely things we don't know yet about many chemicals that are seemingly relatively safe.

 

[MattKing]

I would have posted something similar, but recently I got spanked by one of the distaff APUG members.

I'd hazard a guess that it wasn't so much the post Sirius, but rather the frquent repetition.

And maybe the frequent repeated reference to a "younger" model.

 

[StoneNYC]

PE, I think my problem was made much worse when I sepia toned about thirty 16x20 prints when I worked for the AF back in the early 90's. I couldn't wear gloves because the prints were so slippery. It was the old rotten egg stuff. It took a very long time and I did it on my own time in my own back yard. My hands swelled to what seemed like twice their size and they were numb for days. After that they cracked and bled for awhile. My cuticles have never been the same.

BTW, these were copies of historic photos and publications to display at the local HQ. I used 4x5 with various films and processing techniques to produce decent quality reproductions. Many of these would have been a challenge for some people to make decent copies of. What pisses me of to this day is how they drooled over the color snapshots done by a hack showing the (then) current locations of the copied images. He just pointed and clicked on medium format color and they paid a local lab for prints. The reaction to the B&W was, "meh". They didn't have a clue regarding skill level of either task nor the time and effort nor the pain-in-the-neck... or hands.

We all have similar stories though.

Anyway, I do think the extended time in sepia toner is what caused most of the damage to my hands.

I had an ironically similar story, was in an art show with another B&W photographer, and I was showing my Kodachrome, and his big tout over me is that he had hand developed everything, (both had used a lab to print the images) yet being Kodachrome I couldn't say the same thing and people "meh"ed my work because I hadn't put in the work "by hand" like the other photographer. I tried explaining why Kodachrome had to be done by a specialized lab and how much more difficult it is to shot then B&W but no one really cared. Sad really... Ah well... Learning experience...


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Sirius Glass]

I'd hazard a guess that it wasn't so much the post Sirius, but rather the frquent repetition.

And maybe the frequent repeated reference to a "younger" model.

And why would "younger" model bother the distaff? :confused: Couldn't they get a "younger" model?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Gosh, Ron ... two of the biggest color lab owners in this metropolitan area were put out of business,
not because it wasn't profitable back then, but because they had gotten so sensitized to color chemsitry they couldn't even walk into their own labs anymore. One of them would instantly break out in hives. And a third lab owner had to avoid any section of his lab doing RA4. These reactions were just like the amine sensitization epoxy workers develop. I know one guy who boasted how the stuff was harmless because it hadn't done a thing to him in over twenty years of mfg. Now he can't
even TOUCH an old baked enamel desk (allegedly totally inert) without anaphylactic shock. Lot of
color chemistry contains amines too. I'm just waiting till someone in the commercial inkjet crowd comes down with sensitivity to glycols. It happens in the paint industry. Might take quite awhile,
but it will happen. I bought a new ultralight backpacking tent two years ago and knew it would have
an excess of phalates, so aired it out well two weeks in advance. But then I got caught in snowstorms every day, so spent a fair amt of time in it. The fumes had largely outgassed, but my
hands had rash all over them, and anywhere else skin had made contact. This summer it wasn't so
bad, but I was reallly careful about skin contact.