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View Full Version : Historical significance and the fleeting moment - random thots



Robert J Cardon
31-Mar-2004, 12:40
The other day a friend and I revisited some the places we photographed a couple of years ago. Mostly old towns, buildings, relics of a bygone era. Some of the scenes had changed: trees dead or new ones coming up, buildings collapsed, new construction replacing the old, and billboards ruining a once good composition. Then it struck me how aside from potentially being art, most of our pictures could serve a documentary purpose. I suspect that many of the old photos providing us a vignette of life in earlier days, were taken by people who never thought the images would become historically significant. We casually discussed the idea that our pictures might have increased value in the future simply because they're old and document things which have disappeared. In this sense, the making of pictures can serve as a portal to the past, a link that will last long after "time makes history of us." And this includes images of modern America (Europe, Asia, etc.) circa 2004 as well as the relics from decades past. It could be that the process that starts with light hitting silver halides results in something beyond the photographer or a nice print on the wall.

In more practical, immediate terms, we noted how much of what we have taken can never be repeated. Not only will the light or clouds ever be the same, but many of the scenes have changed or disappeared, obliterated by nature or "progress." It hit home the importance of going for broke, giving 100%, when out shooting, because what you see may not be there tomorrow.

Yes, no, maybe?

RJ

Alec Jones
31-Mar-2004, 12:46
Oh yes, most definitely. I love to do this, based not only on my old photos but those of others. The slang term is "finding the tripod holes". The technical term of what you've proposed is Rephotography. There are several books on this subject.

I can just sit for hours and look at these comparisons of photos taken 50-100 years apart. It is never too late to begin taking the "before" shots. Maybe someone else in the future will use them to complete the "after" ones. Make good notes on the locations!

Michael Kadillak
31-Mar-2004, 14:12
Could not agree more. In fact, there is an industry that has been spawned in much of the West where the aged wood of old structures are being purchased to be used in new construction to capitalize on the "old" look at a serious visual cost within the landscape. Old structures need to be documented as quickly as possible as ranchers and farmers are struggling to stay afloat and the predators that are offering nominal fees to these individuals for the wood should consider the historical value, but it is simply a way to make a buck. Really a sad situation.

Please get out there and do your share. You have the experience and the tools to make a difference. Work with your local historical association and give a bit of your skill set back to a society that does not know what they are missing until it is gone. Cheers!

jnantz
31-Mar-2004, 15:47
robert:

you should think about making a series of images as you have discribed, and donate them to a local library or historical commission / repository. THOSE are the sort of photographs that are desparately needed at the local level.

i make hand stitched books of streetscapes and have donate/ sell them to small public libraries and private collections.

they are always very grateful.

Conrad Hoffman
31-Mar-2004, 19:24
A couple years ago our local historical society here in upstate NY held a photo contest where they gave out old photos. You had to find the spot and duplicate the image as seen today. It was loads of fun and quite a challange. I ended up taking my photo from the roof of a supermarket- the original had been taken from the second floor of a house that no longer stood there. Way back in 1972 we did the same thing in our high school yearbook. We got a variety of old images around Bennington, Vt, and duplicated them as best we could. It would be interesting to do it a third time, as I know the landscape has changed tremendously. Last time I was in Vt, most of the open fields and scenic vistas were wooded and overgrown. You really can't go home :-(

Kirk Gittings
31-Mar-2004, 21:12
Some years ago I had a major NEA grant to photograph historic churches in New Mexico. It was a great opportunity to not just document but have unlimited access to find "art" images, i.e. images that transcend the architecture. Almost twenty years later I have revisited those images for a recent retrospective show and an upcoming monograph. Many of the structures that I photographed are gone or remodeled and lost their character. I really didn't conceive of these images as recording structures that would be totally lost, but in some cases I have the last professional photographs that were made of them. Even some of the "documents" are now quite valuable images because of their historical value.

John Kasaian
31-Mar-2004, 23:22
The more things change, the more they stay the same. When I was a kid and we'd take the rare family trip up to San Francisco, my Dad would quietly remark that the City just wasn't the same place after WW2. I didn't know what he meant by that. Now I lament the long gone Playland at the Beach amusement park, the ship's prow that was a long time restaurant landmark by the Powell and Market turntable and the old beer garden that used to be on Market St. My children have no idea---they think the merry go round at Pier 39 is really cool, right up there with the serpentine escalator at that big shopping mall on Market(maybe it sits where the old beer garden used to be?) Now I know what my Dad meant. Its nice to have those Black and Whites to recharge the ol' gray matter. Its more than nice really. I have a class where I ask my students to write a family history. Most can't go back more than one or two generations. As we loose the memory of our ancestors, we also loose the historical concept of "place," Swept aside for new development that brings in tax dollars and jobs so politicians can promote themselves. Purposely destroyed for the sake of some ego that deems that historic structures ought not to be in a politically created "wilderness." Perhaps bulldozed because something old is considered a liability by an insurance company, or for greed in some form. OTOH, whats being lost is being replaced. Some day in the future, whoever is around will appreciate now rare derelict McDonald's or Starbucks in the same way I would look at a falling down Butterfield Stage station or a WW2 vintage airplane hangar.

Last year, after finding a series of syndicated newspaper columns from the 1930's I went on a road trip to the Owens Valley and desert area to photograph the missions built by the author, Fr. Crowley for whom Crowley Lake was named. There wasn't much left. Some parts of the original churches survived, moved and used as "additions" to other buildings. One original church, a simple structure, still stands but thats about it. I considered that the Owens Valley is after all, a caldera long overdue (my geology comrades tell me) to blow. What would have been the point in building say a "Notre Dame" in a caldera? Fr. Crowley was interested in saving souls more than architecture. The monuments left by the desert dwellers were things like the celery canyon, where a Miner was killed in a flash flood that scattered his beloved celery plants and seed down the flood path. The unkept palm trees that mark the driveway to a family's home that no longer stands. A reservoir named for a Redemptorist who died a long long way from home in a land not known for greenery.

I agree, we are loosing our past and photographs are a vital record of what once was(now I'll have to look up a color snapshot I took of the Sands in Las Vegas with my Instamatic---the last time I saw the snapshot it had yellowed something fierce) but at the same time, something new is taking place. Maybe its not as nice as what once was, but someday it too will be included in the portfolio of "what once was"

FWIW, I can't wait until those friggin' windmills that look like teletubbie tower thingys are relegated to the history books!

Cheers!

adrian tyler
2-Apr-2004, 08:03
forgive me if i sound cynical but at the rate that the climate is changing and the vast amounts of fossil based fuel (and everything else) that we are consuming i can't help wonder if the generations that follow on from us will be as privilaged as we are in being able to reflect on such matters with any nostalgia.

Tom Johnston
2-Apr-2004, 19:05
I have always been fascinated with juxtapositions of "then and now" photographs and have participated in this pursuit myself. I am currently talking with my local historical society to do a project like this with them. I can sit and look at such pictures for hours - lining up horizons and features that remain the same after many years - old buildings, towns, landscapes, etc.

For those that share this fascination, William A. Frassanito has published several books that are incredibly interesting. He worked for the National Park Service and his specialty is re-photographing Civil War Battlefields. I have two of his books - Gettysburg: A Journey In Time and another equivalent book on Antietam. He would research original glass plates and, though careful research, locate the precise original camera positions and reshoot the scene. The books show side-by-side photographs, then-and-now. Whe first viewing some of his pictures, you have to wonder how he determined that the scene was the same but he proves that they are the same with analysis that reminds me of something Sherlock Holmes would do. The time of day, angle of shadows, comparisons of tree branches far off in the distance but with identifiable branch patterns discernable under high magnification and compared to other existing photographs from other positions, etc. Incredible work!

Just last week, in preparation for a trip this summer (I hunt down remote ghost towns), I found a book by Robert L. Brown entitled, Colorado Ghost Towns Past and Present. Another incredible (but older) book. (It is probably available on Amazon.com or half.com.)

If I could post two pictures here, I would show you a set of then and now pictures that I made last year that I just scanned last week.

On a related topic (which I think the originator of this thread mentioned), I have also been interested in the idea that photographers that made old photographs were generally not interested in art photography. In general, they were recording a scene for one reason or another. Someone I talked about this with suggested that that means that we should just blast away with the idea that we are recording tomorrow's history - sort of in a random way. I have a problem with that, however. I am not saying that we should not photograph contemporary scenes but, in my opinion, we should not photograph them with the idea that they will be historically interesting in the future. Serious photography demands selectivity and we should try to make photographs that have value now. If they have historical interest in the future, that's a bonus. It's futile and wasteful to simply take random shots to record the present (I am not suggesting that anyone recommended that ini this thread). But I think it's very rewarding to photograph things of significance and/or beauty today. It will be a very long time, if ever, that photographs we take today will have historical significance and value.

I know a photographer who just fires away randomly. He thinks it's art. It looks like his camera just missfired. Art means selection and control.