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Thread: stacks of old photos

  1. #1
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    stacks of old photos

    A colleague just came back from an Archives conference in Ottawa. While he was there he got to spend some time behind the scenes at the National Gallery. In one section they got to the end of the stacks and there was a big set of built in shelving full of print boxes from floor to ceiling all labelled alphabetically going from Adams through Karsh to Weston to Steiglitz....

    He told me he had a chance to rumage through a few, but didn't manage to bring any back with him :-(

    tim
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  2. #2

    stacks of old photos

    Well that indeed sounds a bit odd as well as the Government of Canada acting in a casual or perhaps careless manner. Along these lines Tim I was recently told by a local photographer that it is possible to purchase replicas of some of Ansel Adams negatives for a very reasonable price somewhere in the USA. I know I am starting to sound quite gullible here, but the guy insisted that it was possible to purchase copies of some of his more famous negatives so that one might experiment with printing them. Ever heard of this?

    And please … do not try to sell me a bridge, as the old creek down by the barn dried up many years ago. :>))

    Kind Regards,

  3. #3
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    stacks of old photos

    "Well that indeed sounds a bit odd as well as the Government of Canada acting in a casual or perhaps careless manner."

    don't quite understand you here...?
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  4. #4

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    stacks of old photos

    Tim, many times galleries produce press photos for ditribution to announce an up coming display. These are usually made from 8 x 10 copy negatives of an original print. The original is produced by the artist for this purpose, and the images are printed for reproduction, not what the artist would consider a fine art print. Could be this is what your friend saw, boxes of leftovers.

  5. #5
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    stacks of old photos

    eerrr... guys - the National Gallery has one of the largest collections of photographs in the world from Fox Talbot to Nègre (probably THE major collection anywhere) to Julia Margaret Cameron to Atget to Weston, Evans, Sander, Steiglitz etc. right up to Ed Burtynsky and Lynn Cohen. They only have the tiniest numnber on display at any one time. This was where the originals live... it's their temperature and humidity controlled archival environment behind the scenes. These were professional archivists and conservators from some of thew worlds leading institutions taking a look.

    Access to most of them is available to any bona fide researcher - these guys just happened to be on a tour of peer experts. My colleague who is an archivist who specialies in photographs, film and sound recordings (and was giving a paper) merely did what any other reseacher can do, he looked through some of the original prints. The difference being (unlike any old researcher), he was behind the scenes and as he is also a photogpraher in his own right, it was the experience of walking around the corner and coming face to face with shelves full of original photogprahs from almost every master of the medium since the first images were produced in a fixed form

    Sheesh you guys - what is it - you got the impression they were stored in old grocery bags behind the dumpster....?
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  6. #6

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    stacks of old photos

    "In one section they got to the end of the stacks and there was a big set of built in shelving full of print boxes from floor to ceiling all labelled alphabetically going from Adams through Karsh to Weston to Steiglitz...."

    Tim, my first mental impression of this statement was stacks of Kodak boxes labeled with a magic marker. Thanks for clarifying what had to be an amazing scene.

  7. #7

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    stacks of old photos

    Friends, this is not an uncomon story The National Gallery of Canada is no different than most places when it comes to storing work. In some of the work that I have done in print collections, storage is a major issue. We do not put one print in one print box. The Getty would need a place the size of California to store all the work. Stored print look to be hapharzed, but they are not. Some places and collections classify the work as to how it can be handled and who can handle it. Mounted and overmated prints are a pain and take up room lots of room. After a show prints are unmounted and refiled mostly as loose prints, to save on storage. (no I do not work at the Getty, but have been in the back rooms)

    No I am not suprised to hear of this sort of practice. I have seen a prominent photographers glass plates stored in a shead. If you value your work start sorting it out and get rid of the c..p, so some one can make a choice about your work after your gone.

  8. #8

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    stacks of old photos

    I've never heard of being able to buy "replicas" of Ansel Adams' negatives, which doesn't mean it isn't possible only that it seems surprising. He gave his archives, including his negatives, to the Univesity of Arizona which used them to start the Center for Creative Photography. The University allows a limitied number of students to study the negatives but I don't think they sell replicas of them and commercial prints can't be made from them. However, there are at least some dupes of his negatives out there. For example, John Sexton shows a dupe of the "Moonrise" negative at his workshops.

    Your friend might be thinking of the Library of Congress program under which copies of photographs by many well known photographers can be bought for very litle money. I've never done it myself so I don't know the details and I don't know that they have any of Adams' work but they have most of the famous FHA photographers (Evans, Lange, et al) and probably others.
    Brian Ellis
    Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
    a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

  9. #9

    stacks of old photos

    It may be heresy in this group to mention anything digital, but the Library of Congress web site did have high res scan of some of Adams work. Some months back, I downloaded one of these scans and printed it on my Epson 1270 photo printer, and it was really nice! Here's the gallery preview for downloads:

    http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/f?manz:0:./temp/~ammem_FkT6:<a>

    Background info on the AA work:

    <a href=http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/lcib/02034/internment.html>http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/lcib/02034/internment.html


    Here's how LOC scanned them:
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aamhtml/aambuild.html

    Here's ordering info:
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aamhtml/aamrepro.html

    and copyright info: (the Manzanar series isn't)
    http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/res/382_adams.html

    Marvin

  10. #10

    stacks of old photos

    Adams did mention many times that it would be interesting to see what future generations could do with his negatives. He frequently used the analogy to music, where the negative would be the score and the print would be the performance. I don’t know if any prints were made from his negatives after his death, but I don’t recall hearing about any. I am not sure if his donation of his work to the University of Arizona allows for prints to be made at some time in the future.

    Adams did allow prints of at least one negative to be made by his assistant for use by the Friends of Photography to raise funds for the organization in 1983, shortly before his death a year later. Although the printing was supervised and approved by Adams, they are labeled on the back as "Negative by A. Adams, Print by Chris Rainier" or something of that nature depending on who printed it. I own one such 8x10 print, but the signature on the back is covered up by the backing in the frame and I can’t quote it verbatim. The negative was from his later Hasselblad work and was never sold under Adams’ own signature to the best of my knowledge.

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