Marking time on photography
Carte-de-visite or visiting card?
I have just bought a little photograph on ebay. It’s not from Queensland, so it doesn’t fit my collection, but it took my fancy.
On the front is an albumen print, rather faded, of a pretty Italianate villa, with stone arcades, polychrome brickwork, cast iron filigree cresting, and a conservatory. The house sits in a picturesque garden, with strolling paths and flower beds. I think it’s a copy of a watercolour picture of the scene, not a photograph from life. It looks like the house of somebody who had done well in Melbourne, perhaps as a merchant or a speculator in mining stock.
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Panoramic Queensland
The other day I went to the State Library of Queensland to see Panoramic Queensland, an exhibition of panoramic photographs from the John Oxley Library collection. This is a fine showing of several dozen panoramas of Brisbane and other Queensland places.
»more»Merry and happy, again
As a sequel to a previous greeting card here is another nineteenth century photographic greeting card from Tasmania. This one is not an ordinary carte-de-visite, but a somewhat larger card measuring 125mm by 82mm. The Loebenstein Company of Vienna produced more than two dozen sizes of cards for mounting photographs. This size was known by the charming name of Elisabeth.
»more»Another Daniel Marquis photo
I have just acquired another carte-de-visite photo from the studio of Daniel Marquis. It’s a scruffy specimen but I am glad to have it. I’ve added it to my online museum. On the back is some writing in a language-other-than-English. Would anybody care to identify the language, and tell me what it says, please?
»more»Where is this?
I’m intrigued to know the identity of the Queensland bush township in this old lantern slide.
»more»At last, a Daniel Marquis photograph
I am now the owner of an original carte-de-visite photograph by my distant relative Daniel Marquis, proprietor of a photographic studio in George Street, Brisbane. He established the studio in 1866, not long after arriving from Scotland. He died in 1879.
»more»Roger Fenton in the Crimea: quizzing the evidence
Just published in the New York Times — an article by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris about two photographs taken by Roger Fenton on the same day in April 1855. Both are entitled Valley of the shadow of death and show a road curving through a valley outside of Sebastopol. The landscape in both is littered with cannon balls.
»more»Bernd Becher, 1931-2007
I’m saddened to read that Bernd Becher has died. Bernd, with his wife and photographic partner Hilla, produced a wonderful body of work recording industrial structures. They photographed mineshaft headframes, water towers, blast furnaces, gas holders, grain silos and the like, all in a deadpan monochrome style that stressed the typological consistencies and inconsistencies of their subjects.
»more»Running the numbers
Chris Jordan’s Running the numbers: an American self-portrait is a series of photographs that looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Here are images that give scale to the numbers.
»more»The grand tour: travelling the world with an architect’s eye
In this pleasing and quirky book Harry Seidler lays out a collection of his travel photographs. He has been an ardent traveller, photographer and observer of architecture since he was a student.
My photographer brother, Marcell (1919-1977) gave me simple advice when I started to record architectural sites “Only use Leica cameras and Kodachrome film, which is archival”. I have adhered to this in taking all images in this book, some over 50 years ago.»more»
Cameratruck
Forgive me if I seem obsessed with big cameras, but I must point out the website of a gang of loonies who are driving around Spain with a cargo van converted into a big camera.
»more»John Ruskin’s Daguerreotypes?
From an article in the UK Telegraph newspaper yesterday:
A small country firm of auctioneers has been left embarrassed but elated after selling a box of photographs it valued at £80 for £75,000.»more»
Letters from the Crimea
Roger Fenton was the first photographer to take a camera to war, in 1855. The letters he wrote to his family and business associates during this campaign can now be read on the web. Along with the 25 letters there are some introductory essays and a good collection of links.
»more»The Stock Route
As a small contribution to Alan Griffiths’ work of building a comprehensive website about photography, here is a photograph from my collection.
»more»A postcard from Germany
Jaroslav Poncar, wonderful panoramic photographer of Ladakh and other places, has sent me a pdf postcard. It announces the launch of his new book Himalayas: where gods and man meet. He calls it a supercoffeetablebook. At 34 x 48 cm it would fit on our coffee table, but it’s too big for the book shelves. I want one!
»more»Bitter fruit
That fine photographer Paul Fusco has recorded the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq. He has web-published 44 of his pictures, with his voice-over narrative, under the title Bitter fruit.
Fusco is passionate, and thoroughly engaged with his subject. He takes us along on his private and independent quest. He is the antithesis of the embedded reporter. The work is published by Magnum Photos, the agency owned by Fusco and other photographers.
How the other half lived
My thanks to Paul Giambarba for a link to an online version of Jacob Riis’s How the other half lives.
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Fire scars in the desert
I enjoyed the startling calligraphy of these fire scars in the Simpson Desert.
The fire scars were produced in a recent fire, probably within the last year. The image suggests a time sequence of events. Fires first advanced into the view from the lower left�parallel with the major dune trend and dominant wind direction. Then the wind shifted direction by about 90 degrees so that fires advanced across the dunes in a series of frond-like tendrils. Each frond starts at some point on the earlier fire scar, and sharp tips of the fronds show where the fires burned out naturally at the end of the episode. The sharp edges of the fire scars are due to steady but probably weak southwesterly winds—weaker winds reduced sparking of additional fires in adjacent scrub on either side of the main fire pathways. Over time, the scars will become less distinct as vegetation grows back.»more»
The real toy story
75% of the world’s toys are made in China. See the website of an art gallery installation by Michael Wolf. [via Coudal Partners]
The project was conceived in the spring of 2003 during a visit to the United States. As a surprise for my son Jasper, I bought a sack (app. 600) of second hand toys at the local goodwill store and distributed them on every available surface in his room — surprise! The effect was stunning. As we examined the toys closer we made a discovery — every single one was made in China. Jasper observed: “I thought Santa and his helpers made toys!” It was then the idea came to me: what if I was to make an installation and cover an entire wall with toys “made in China” and juxtapose them with portraits of Chinese toy-factory workers?»more»
Avedon postscript
On The New Yorker website is Adam Gopnik’s short obit. for Richard Avedon. Here is the opening para.:
To know Dick Avedon was to know the sun. He radiated out, early and daily, on a circle of friends and family and colleagues, who drew on his light and warmth for sustenance. When he died, last week, at the age of eighty-one, some light seemed to go out in many lives and around many pleasures. For, though he was incandescent in his presence, he was surprisingly domestic in his enthusiasms; he believed in family as passionately as he believed in art, and could leave an hour-long conversation about Goya’s horrors to talk with the same avidity about how to light a room or roast a leg of lamb.
There is also a slide show of Avedon portraits.
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon, photographer, has died on the job at the age of 81. I have admired his stark black and white portraits since I saw his oversized book Nothing personal (with text by James Baldwin, 1964).
»more»Driving a nail
Thanks to Jeremy for pointing out the New York Times’s obituary for Henri Cartier-Bresson. It contains this quote from the photographer:
My contact sheets may be compared to the way you drive a nail in a plank. First you give several light taps to build up a rhythm and align the nail with the wood. Then, much more quickly, and with as few strokes as possible, you hit the nail forcefully on the head and drive it in.»more»
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson died today. Magnum Photos, the agency he co-founded in 1947, has published a collection of photos of him.
»more»Packing my camera bag
It’s always a diversion, thinking about what camera gear to take on a trip. So, what should I pack for our sabbatical in New Zealand?
It’s easy to set out the principle: Not too much, but not too little. Nice aphorism, but what does it mean in practice?
I have no doubt where to start. The newer of my two Canon F-1 bodies, built in April 1977. The F-1 is a climax in the evolution of the mechanical single lens reflex 35mm camera — robust, precise and modular. With a Nikkor 28mm PC (perspective correcting) lens and a gridded viewing screen, this is my first choice for taking pictures of buildings.
»more»Dan Price’s moonlight chronicles
The Morning News has a delightful interview with Dan Price, artist, writer and publisher of The moonlight chronicles.
After working as a photojournalist for 10 years I sold all my cameras and began documenting my own little life instead of everyone else’s. Using a pen and paper I was able to document what I was seeing without a machine between me and the subject. If you draw lots you can become very addicted to that peaceful state of being. It’s definitely my drug of choice!»more»
A parcel from Thailand
Writing about last month’s special place sent me casting the net for the books of Dr Jaroslav Poncar. There is one at the State Library of Queensland (hidden away in the stacks), and another in the Queensland University of Technology Library (at a campus on the other side of town).
Amazon has some of his books, but not the one I found in a Bangkok bookshop.
»more»Charles Cushman photographs
Charles Weever Cushman, amateur photographer and Indiana University alumnus, bequeathed approximately 14,500 Kodachrome color slides to his alma mater. The photographs in this collection bridge a thirty-two year span from 1938 to 1969, during which time he extensively documented the United States as well as other countries.»more»
Over the top
For Remembrance Day, a reminder that arguments about the authenticity of the photographic record are not new.
Frank Hurley, in France with the Australian troops in 1917, wrote about the problems of recording what was going on around him:
I have tried, and tried again, to include events on a single negative but the results have been hopeless. Everything is on such a wide scale … Figures scattered, atmosphere dense with haze and smoke — shells that simply would not burst when required. All the elements of a picture were there, could they but be brought together and condensed. The battle is in full swing, the men are going over the top — I snap. A fleet of bombing planes is flying low, there is a barrage bursting all round. But on developing my plates there is disappointment. All I find is a record of a few figures advancing from the trenches and a background of haze.»more»
Harriett Brims, photographer
My congratulations to the Picture Queensland crew at the State Library of Queensland for adding a collection of photographs by Harriett Brims to their digital collection.
The project news page has a short biography and introduction to the photographer’s work, written by Dianne Byrne, with thumbnail links to some of the photographs. If that page has gone by the time you read this, just search* Picture Queensland for “Harriett Brims”.
»more»Talbot’s correspondence
William Henry Fox Talbot was a philosopher, classicist, Egyptologist, mathematician, philologist, transcriber and translator of Syrian and Chaldean cuneiform texts, physicist, and photographer. The work that he did between 1834 and 1850 established in principle and practice the foundation of modern photography; the basis of the process that is used today. [Fox Talbot Museum].
On 1 November 1851 Talbot wrote to the committee organising the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London:
»more»Paris photographed and rephotographed
As an aside to my special place for this month, here is a link to images of 494 photographs of Paris by Eugène Atget in the George Eastman House collection.
»more»The Kodak Brownies
George Eastman’s Kodak company launched the first Brownie camera in 1900. In 1950 Kodak gave free cameras to 500,000 children, to celebrate 50 years of the Brownie line. (And, perhaps, to ensure continued film sales).
»more»Stopping the Kodak Carousel
I have seen this message posted to various internet mailing lists:
Eastman Kodak Company has confirmed plans to discontinue the manufacture and sales of slide projection products and accessories in June of 2004. This early disclosure is being made to key user groups in order to allow time for adoption of a replacement technology or purchase of backup slide projector products.
Celebrating federation
When the Duke and Duchess of York visited Australia in 1901, the loyal colonists turned on a special welcome. See this little gallery of stereo photographs. Of the six triumphal arches, my favourite is the one made of butter boxes.
»more»Who owns this photograph?
The Columbia Journalism Review carried an exchange of letters between freelance photographer George Zimbel and the New York Times. The paper paid the photographer for a single use of a picture of John and Jacqueline Kennedy. Forty years later the paper offered the print for sale to collectors for US $4,000. Give it back, it’s mine, said the photographer.
»more»A Lewis Hine scandal
The Atlantic Monthly website has an article by Richard B Woodward, Too much of a good thing: photography, forgery, and the Lewis Hine scandal. Here’s the blurb:
The theoretical physicist who ignited the biggest firestorm in the history of the American photography market was simply trying to figure out if his vintage photos were genuine. By the time he learned the answer, two of the country’s best-known photography scholars had come under a cloud of suspicion.»more»
Merry Xmas!
To celebrate the coming winter solstice, here’s an unusual Tasmanian carte-de-visite. Scenic views are not common carte-de-visite subjects, and I don’t remember seeing a CDV Chrismas card before.
»more»Baghdad blogger
Salam Pax (not his real name, surely) writes a weblog from Baghdad. It’s a gripping account of daily life in a city waiting for the onslaught.
»more»Baghdad snapshots
In New York thousands of pictures of people in Baghdad have been pasted up in the streets, a prompt to consider the human consequences of attacking Iraq. Join the campaign.
»more»The earth at night
See the earth at night by the light of its cities. The image is a composite of hundreds of pictures made by US Defense Meteorological Satellites.
»more»Hurley at the National Library
The National Library of Australia has digitised its fabulous collection of Frank Hurley negatives and made the images available on the web. Bravo!
»more»Signs of discrimination
The US Library of Congress houses the work created in the 1930s by Farm Security Administration photographers — Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and others. On the library website is a collection of photographs of signs enforcing racial discrimination. From the web page intro:
»more»New year’s resolution
To really understand how the T90 and 300TL interact in all their modes.
»more»Saving black rhinos
I read about the work of the Save the Black Rhino Trust through the aus.photo newsgroup. I followed up, and received some more information:
»more»A collection of cartes-de-visite
Instead of sitting in a rustic chair in the company of birds I have spent a little time scanning Queensland carte-de-visite photographs so you can see them here.
»more»Photography in street and studio
See Street and studio: popular commercial photography in India and Bangladesh, an article from the online journal Intersections: gender, history and culture in the Asian context. It deconstructs the kind of photography that producted one of my own mugshots.
Conserving photographs
I spent today at a photographic preservation workshop, looking closely at daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes and other early photographs, and learning how to care for them. Thanks to Lydia Egunnike, conservator at the State Library of Queensland, for an excellent session. My little collection is in for some tender loving care.
»more»Really big cameras
I am prompted by today’s sad anniversary to mention two more big cameras, both even larger than the 20 x 24 inch monsters made by Polaroid and Wisner.
»more»Cold war leftovers
Cold war leftovers is a photographic project by Art Maples:
»more»A small camera
Two months after ordering, it arrived today. With a camera like this I could take daily dog pictures, if I had a dog.
»more»Another Karsh obituary
Today the Ottawa Citizen carried a longish obituary for Karsh of Ottawa. I’ll quote a piece about the Churchill portrait I mentioned yesterday:
»more»Yousuf Karsh
No, I am not obsessed with big cameras, but I must mention that Yousuf Karsh died yesterday. He was the man who made that 1941 photograph of Winston Churchill looking like an affronted bulldog (he removed the Prime Minister’s cigar during the session). See this obituary in the New York Times, a few of his portraits on the Weston Gallery website, and a lot of them on the George Eastman House website.
More big cameras
When I wrote about Elsa Dorfman and her massive camera, I didn’t know that the Wisner Classic Mfg. Co. (the largest wooden camera maker in the world) can sell you a new 20 x 24 Technical Field Camera.
»more»Digital darkroom
Yesterday I made my first digital quad-tone prints, a milestone on my way from darkroom to desktop photographic print making. All sorts of new technologies make this possible, and the internet sews it all together: Through the net I found out about film scanners, Photoshop, monitor calibration, printer profiling and inkjet printers. I bought the printer at auction, and shopped on-line for the continuous ink system, the inks and paper. I joined in discussions, and sought information about technicalities and aesthetics.
»more»Elsa on video
Digging around on Elsa Dorfman’s website, I found this page of links to some documentary video files I had missed. They are all terrific, but see the one about the camera first — unless you have a broadband connection, take a coffee break while it downloads (it’s 8.8mb).
Developments at Polaroid
From today’s news: BOSTON (AP) Polaroid Corp. is hoping a sale to a deep-pocketed bank will help it dig out from bankruptcy and revive its famous instant film and camera business. It’s been a little sad to see such a clever company go down.
»more»A new Leica
The Leica company has just announced a new M-series camera. The M7 is a descendent of the M3 of 1954, the first Leica rangefinder camera with a bayonet lens mount. Details are on the Leica website, or see this review by Irwin Puts.
»more»The reptile skinned camera
In 1929 the Ernst Leitz company of Wetzlar made a small batch of Leica Luxus cameras, gold plated and covered with lizard skin, just for the filthy-rich. The Luxus held its value — Christies in London sold one in 1994 for £39,600.
»more»Making a wet collodion negative
The Getty Museum website has a video of this picture-taking process, invented in 1851. By 1880 it was superseded by mass-produced dry plates.
»more»More manhole covers
German photographer Roland Mühler’s website includes a gallery of fine photographs of street manhole covers. Remember my snapshot of the one in Chandigarh? Roland’s are much nicer (and there are 45 of them).
»more»Look back in Ingres
This piece in the New York Times is about a symposium featuring painter David Hockney and some art history scholars. Hockney reckoned the Old Masters used more lenses, mirrors and other optical aids than had been thought. Not everyone agreed — the debate sounds like fun.
»more»Indian pictures
I like these evocative photographs of India by Mark Tucker. They remind me of some of my own travelling pictures from 1972. No, I don’t claim to be in the same league.