Route 66 in the 1950's (also an obituary)

[Vaughn]

"The images use something called one-point perspective: the composition that makes faraway objects appear to recede."
WTH is that?? Sounds like regular old perspective to me...
But I never went to art school, so don't know this new-fangled way of speakin'! (or is it "old-fangled"?)

Simple stuff. Like talking about cars and mentioning the non slip differential -- if you know something about cars no problem...if you don't, then you ask why they are talkin' all technical like.

The images does look like the flash bar was used -- intense one source light!

[Two23]

Those are amazing! I wonder if he did use flash powder for the interiors. Or maybe flash bulbs?

Flash powder was pretty much gone by the 1930s. Powder also left behind a lot of smoke. Almost certainly it was flash bulbs in the 1950s.


Kent in SD

[Vaughn]

While it was in the 30s that flash bulbs were invented and slowly improved upon, with the first all-glass ones made in 1954. I imagine flash powder was still available for quite a while -- and it would certainly add a little more showmanship into the photography. The large DoF of the interior images looks to be because of a very small aperture, so the flash must have been extremely powerful. I would not rule out flash powder.

Who knows...perhaps he knew O. Winston Link and got some flash tips. He certainly had the equipment for flash-lamp photography (or at least he posed with it) at the beginning of his and his new wife's adventures!

[mdarnton]

That's a really great story and photos! Thanks.

[Richard Wasserman]

It’s hard to imagine anyone using flash powder in the 1950s. There were many sizes of flash bulbs available, some of which were extremely powerful and didn’t threaten to burn down the premises.

[Vaughn]

But not nearly as exciting (tho the early bulbs were known to explode too -- sending glass shards everywhere). The honeymoon photo with his holding a flash-lamp might have just been a prop...or what they started out with. I wonder what the relative cost was between a use of the flash lamp compared to a flash bulb.

The images seem to be of two types -- the sheet film with the notches (and typical LF rebate) and the marks caused by hanging them up to dry with a clip in the corner...and then the other images might be roll film (or perhaps LF film packs, but there are no clip marks from hanging individual negs).

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh. Almost reminds me of my childhood home town memories, except that we had only one barber shop chair in hundreds of square miles. But all the uncorrected parallax distortions make me question how much of this, if any, was actually done with a view camera on tripod at the time. Just because they posed with one doesn't mean it was the primary instrument. Looks handheld to me.

[Two23]

The large DoF of the interior images looks to be because of a very small aperture, so the flash must have been extremely powerful. I would not rule out flash powder.

Who knows...perhaps he knew O. Winston Link and got some flash tips. He certainly had the equipment for flash-lamp photography (or at least he posed with it) at the beginning of his and his new wife's adventures!

I've used #25 bulbs to photo trains with ISO 400 film, and even those little bulbs are more powerful than my White Lightning X3200 monolights. The bulbs Link was using were huge, looked like house hold bulbs. Not out of the question it was powder, but I'm just wondering if business owners would have tolerated the smoke and the nasty reputation powder had by then. I do a fair amount of trains at night with flash and have had the opportunity to have lunch with one of Link's assistants--David Plowden. He said Link was very secretive.


Kent in SD

[Vaughn]

You are probably correct...I am just a romantic in love with the idea of this couple traveling across country, entertaining people with large explosions of light in a once-in-a-lifetime event for many of them. Some clean up from a flash-lamp may not have been considered a major problem...all par for the course at the time.

Of course, traveling with a bunch of unstable chemicals in the trunk would also throw a little excitement into the travels, too!

[Two23]

I've sometimes thought it would be cool to try flash powder. I'm a fan of Brassai, and he was using it in the early 1930s. That's why they called him the "Terrorist." Reading up on it I quickly lost all desire to fool with it. I get in enough trouble with my wife using silver nitrate solution for wet plate.


Kent in SD