Beating the heat

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Disco Light (c) DE Wolf, 2013

Disco Light (c) DE Wolf, 2013

The weather has been sizzling in the United States.  I heard on the news tonight that 100 million Americans are in a heat wave.  In Massachusetts we have had seven straight days of 90 plus (Fahrenheit) temperatures and are waiting, as I write, for the weather to break, which will almost certainly be heralded in by severe thunderstorms.

Of course, this is nothing in comparison to what readers in Nevada and Arizona have been experiencing. I’m worried about these people, since some articles would suggest that at around 131 deg. F the human body can no longer regulate its temperature.  This, BTW, is not a good thing!

Anyway in the spirit of thinking and being cool, I found an interesting posting on NBC News’ Photoblog  that shows images of people cooling off from summer’s heat fifty years and more ago and today.  There are some great commonalities: children playing in sprinklers or fire hoses, stripping to the barest minimum (legally allowed) on busy city thoroughfares, and eating iced cream.

As for me, on Saturday, we went to Boston’s Museum of Fina Arts.  I took lots of photographs, many that I am quite happy with, but cannot share them because of copyright/distribution restrictions.  There was a marvelous exhibit of “Samurai Armor“ and another called “Hippy Chic” highlighting clothing from the sixties and seventies.  I will share this one picture that shows the patterns of a disco light on the floor.  Perhaps if all this heat continues we can hypnotize ourselves into thinking cool.

 

 

First footstep on the moon

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Figure 1 - First footstep on the moon, NASA photograph in the public domain.

Figure 1 – First footstep on the moon, July 20, 1969. NASA photograph in the public domain.

The twentieth century had its fair share of visionary and great men and women – people who pushed the out envelope.  July 20, 1969, forty-four years ago yesterday, Neil Armstrong takes his first step on the moon.

Beth Yarnelle Edwards’ Suburban Dreams

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A reader sent me a link to a “The Slate” review of Beth Yarnelle Edwards’ portfolio “Suburban Dreams.”  Actually, I recommend that you visit her website, as well, since there are lots more images than in “The Slate” article.  Well, I have to say that this work is fascinating.  The term “Suburban Dreams” immediately conjures up two mental images: the first is the movie “The Stepford Wives,” and the second is a quote that rings in my head from Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar.” I am shocked to find that at some point I disposed of my copy.  Thank, God, for the internet!

“They had a big, rambling house up the street from us, set behind a morbid facade of pine trees, and surrounded by scooters, tricycles, doll carriages, toy fire trucks, baseball bats, badminton nets, croquet wickets, hamster cages and cockerspaniel puppies – the whole sprawling paraphernalia of suburban childhood.”

Edwards’ goal was to create pseudo candid images.  She observes people that she knows in their homes and other spaces, watches their lives, and when a moment or expression grabs her, she asks them to freeze.  The effect is vivid; the subjects seem almost manikin props or people caught like deer in the headlights.  The pictures immediately remind me of the work of Joel Myerowitz, whose posed photographs often look like candids.  In particular there is “An Afternoon on the Beach, 1983,” a seemingly innocuous image until you look closely and realize that the same people appear several times in the image.

Consider Ms. Edwards’ image “Lorraine.”  What are we to make of this?  It seems more than a picture of a woman on a bed.  There is a story.  We see the crucifixes on the wall, the two telephones on the nightstand, the empty bed and the sad look of the woman on the bed.  Is she waiting for someone?  Is she worried?  Is someone gone or worse passed on?  There is huge pathos here, all captured in a simple “image.”

If you go to her HOLLAND Portfolio and then look at image 5 “Josien.”  Again this seems very innocuous.  But you wonder what is the content of the letter?  I made the immediate association, maybe it’s the Holland aspect of the portfolio, with Jan Vermeer’s “The Love Letter, 1666.”

There is also the wonderful picture (number 3 in the Holland Portfolio) of little Friedo racing down a long white hallway on a scooter.  This is one of those great recurrent mythic themes, the long passageway of birth, moving towards the light, or perhaps it is the rebirth that some primitive cultures create as a rite of liminal passage,  It shows the great joy of youthful motion and is symbolic as much as it is literal.

I have spent a lot of time studying and restudying Beth Yarnelle Edwards’ photographs.  Perhaps this is the greatest compliment that I can pay her.  They are fascinating and beautiful.  And I think that they teach us that complaining that you have nothing to photograph is really only an admission of lack of imagination.  Ms. Edwards has done a wonderful job of weaving complex stories out of seemingly mundane situations.

 

The closing of the the Indian telegraph – Ghandi’s internet

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Figure 1 - Indian telegraph receipts from c. 1900, from the Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain.

We recently discussed how the telegraph network really represented the world’s first internet, allowing rapid worldwide communication and the transfer of images.  This past Tuesday marked a critical milestone, the closing of the Indian Telegraph Service after 153 years in operation.  More profoundly, it was the last major telegraph system in the world to shut its doors, making its silencing truly the end of a world era.  This service has been referred to as “Ghandi’s email or internet.”  It was the pulpit from which he broadcast to the world the case for Indian independence from Great Britain.  At its peak in 1985 the service sent 600,000 telegrams a day across India.  It had 45,000 telegraph offices. At the time of its closing the message volume had dwindled to a mere 5,000 a day and the number of offices to seventy-five.

Still we may reflect on the way in which technologies evolve, reach their zenith, and then decline only to be consumed and replaced by something new and better.  There are the long-lived, truly world-defining technologies like the telegraph, the telephone, and the internet, and there are transitional technologies like the eight track tape and the analogue cell phone that are here today and rapidly evolve to something better.

Of course, the word now is “rapidly.”  Technology changes our lives so quickly today that we are continuously in danger of becoming technical dinosaurs and the subject of ridicule by our children – the very children that must,  in the course of time, truly inherit the Earth.

The seduction of the nineteenth century

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Figure 1 - The great British polyglot, explorer, and arabist, who said: "Starting in a hollowed log of wood — some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself 'Why?' and the only echo is 'damned fool!... the Devil drives', from Wikimediacommons and in the public domain

Figure 1 – Photograph of the great British polyglot, explorer, and Arabist, Sir Richard F. Burton, who said: “Starting in a hollowed log of wood — some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself ‘Why?’ and the only echo is ‘damned fool!… the Devil drives’,” from Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain.

We have discussed the early years of photography enough times now: the photographers, their portfolios, the innovations, and the ways in which they changed the world that one cannot help but notice that there is a certain appeal, a particular seduction, to the nineteenth century.  What is this?  Is it justified?

From 1978 – 1981, I had the privilege of being trained by one of the great modern biophysicists, Michael Edidin, at the Johns Hopkins University.  From Michael I learned many important lessons: the proper pronounciation of the word “dissection,” the perfection of scientific reductionism, the quest for passion in science, and not to take myself too seriously.  Michael and I share many common interests and have been lifelong friends.  Not the least of these interests, lay in an understanding that when you needed to abstract yourself from a scientific problem, when you needed to divert your mind so that you could focus, then the best way was to retreat to The Eisenhower Library and bathe yourself in the light of the nineteenth century.

Naysayers will laugh at this love of that century.  They will point to the tragedy of slavery in the nineteenth century, of crushing poverty, child labor, and to what was in essence the bondage of women.  You have only to read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “Oliver Twist,”  “David Copperfield,” and “Tess of the d’Ubervilles” or “Anna Karenina,” to know of these tragedies and to recognize the fact that nineteenth century intellectuals and the middle class were concerned and troubled by them.  For us, in our time, the tragedy is not what happened a century and a half ago, but what happens today.  The mark of Cain that we bear is twenty-first century slavery, modern poverty, present day child labor, and the current bondage of women.  The true tragedy lies not in the terrible brutal slaughter of the American Civil War but that we have done it again and again in the intervening 150 years.  Genocide is not a bad memory but a modern day reality.

Figure 2 - Photograph of Sir Thomas H. Huxley , who said: "Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion... or you shall learn nothing." Photograph by by W & D Downey, c 1888-1890, from the Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain.

Figure 2 – Photograph of Sir Thomas H. Huxley , who said: “Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion… or you shall learn nothing.” Photograph by W & D Downey, c 1888-1890, from the Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain.

Still we may ask: what is this “retreat into the nineteenth century?”  In science and the intellectual realm the nineteenth century was the time of the great polymaths and generalists.  Through intense mental labor a man could become expert in a broad science like physics and biology as opposed to being, as we are today in science, so specialized that we become myopic in our understanding.  It was the time of great all-encompassing and synthetic science.  A man like Darwin could travel the world, take it all in, and understand.   The nineteenth century was crowded with such minds, minds working in laboratories, toiling in libraries, exploring the unknown world, and innovating in industry.  Morse dreamed of instantaneous communication across and between continents.  In our internet we are the heirs of Morse’s dream.  Daguerre and Niépce  dreamed of capturing light on a metal plate. Today we may still marvel at their faces captured in silver.  They dreamed so many dreams that are today reality.  And I think significantly  that they were ultimately not fearful men and women. They were brave or secure enough to shatter forever the religious dogmas that had enslaved humanity for two millennia.

We “retreat into the nineteenth century,” taking a few moments to reflect on how they worked and the clarity of their vision.  Then we return to the accelerated pace of our own world, hell bent to catch the singularity.  Thus, renewed we may once more dream and create as they did.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan

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Figure 1 - Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Anasazi Ruins, 1873, from the Wikimedia Commons and the LOC in the public domain.

Figure 1 – Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Anasazi Ruins, 1873, from the Wikimedia Commons and the LOC in the public domain.

During the past week, I have spoken of nineteenth century American photographer Timothy O’Sullivan (1840-1882) twice, first in the context of his most famous and iconic images of the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg and second yesterday regarding his flashlamp images of Nevada miners.

O’Sullivan came to America from Ireland in 1842,  While still in his teens, he worked for Mathew Brady.  In 1861 at the outbreak of the American Civil War, O’Sullivan was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Union Army. He appears to have principally been a surveyor for the army and he took photographs on the side.

In 1862 O’Sullivan was discharged from the army and was again employed by Brady, this time to follow the campaign of Maj. Gen. John Pope in Northern Virginia. He subsequently left Brady going to work for  Alexander Gardner.  This lead to publication of forty-four of his photographs in “Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War,” including his most famous photograph of dead soldiers at Gettysburg.  After Gettysburg, O’Sullivan documented Ulysses S. Grant’s siege of Petersburg and also photographed Robert E. Lee’s surrender at the Appomattox Court House in April 1865.

After the war and from 1867 to 1869, he was official photographer on the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel under Clarence King. We have already discussed his flashlamp images documenting miner on the Constock Lode in Virginia City, Nevada.  The goal of this work was to attract settlers to the American West and what O’Sullivan did was to document the rugged and beautiful American west.  The term “geophotography” has been used to describe this genre of photography.

I have heard it criticized as being of a purely documentary nature.  I believe this to be very far from the truth.  These photographs bear both technical and artistic proficiency.  They also speak to the wonder of human eyes when first confronted by awe inspiring nature. Significantly, O’Sullivan was also the first to document and record ancient American ruins, revealing that the white eyes of the nineteenth century were not really the first to occupy these spaces.  That was an important lesson, one that ultimately defines America.

In 1870 O’Sullivan joined a survey team in Panama to explore the possibility of cutting a canal across the isthmus. Then from 1871 to 1874 he joined joined George M. Wheeler’s survey west of the 100th meridian west. O’Sullivan spent his final years in Washington, DC where he was the official photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey and the Treasury Department.  He died very prematurely of tuberculosis in 1882 at the age of forty-two.  We can, however, say that his legacy lives on in the work of generations of American photographers, like Ansel Adams, who followed in his footsteps and photographed the natural beauty of the American West. This work still spell binds us and defines the American psyche.

Magnesium powder flash lamp photography

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Figure 1 - Miner working inside the Comstock Mine, Virginia City, Nev. Taken by O'Sullivan using the glare of burning magnesium for a flash of light, 1867--68, form the Wikimedia Common and the US National Archives, in the public domain.

Figure 1 – Miner working inside the Comstock Mine, Virginia City, Nev. Taken by O’Sullivan using the glare of burning magnesium for a flash of light, 1867–68, form the Wikimedia Common and the US National Archives, in the public domain.

In a recent post, I discussed George Shiras III and his night time photography of wild animals.  The lamps that Shiras used are also the ones that Jacob Riis took into the dark alleyways of the New York slums to record images for ground breaking social commentary “How the Other Half Lives.”  There is an excellent website by Ivan Tolmachev that gives “A Brief History of Photographic Flash.” See also “Flash Photography.” and the photomemorabilia site.

To begin with, there was the sun.  However, photographers desired to take their cameras indoors to film that part of life, and emulsions were very slow.  Early film speed were roughly equivalent to an ISO of 4.  The first reliable source of indoor lighting was limelight produced by heating a ball of calcium carbonate in an oxygen flame until it became incandescent.  This process was also used to illuminate theaters, hence the phrase: “under the limelight.”  Limelight was invented by Goldsworthy Gurney and used by L. Ibbetson as a source for photomictrography.

Limelight had its problems, not the least of which was the ghostlike flesh tones it produced. The French photographer Nadar, whom we have previously discussed in the context of early aerial photography, photographed the sewers in Paris, using battery-operated lighting. Arc-lamps were introduced to aid photographers, and in 1877 the first studio using electric light was opened.  This Regent Street studio of Van der Weyde was powered by a gas-driven dynamo and enabled exposures of 2 to 3 seconds.

Edward Sonstadt commercialized the use of magnesium wire as a light source beginning in 1864 when it was demonstrated to produce a photograph in a darkened room with a 50 second exposure.  Anyone who has burned magnesium ribbon in a chemistry lab, doused it in water, and watched it continue to burn will recognize that this was terrifying stuff.

An alternative was magnesium powder.  In 1865 Charles Piazzi Smyth tried with poor success to photograph inside the pyramids at Giza, Egypt, with a mixture of magnesium and gunpowder.  In the true tradition of the daguerreotypists, who worked with mercury and iodine vapors in very confined spaces, the lives, however short, of these photographers were filled with hazardous chemical explosions.

In 1887, Adolf Miethe and Johannes Gaedicke mixed fine magnesium powder with potassium chlorate to produce Blitzlicht. This was the first ever widely used flash powder. Typically these early flash powders were ignited with percussion caps.  They were handheld and ignited with a pistol-like device.  Then, in 1899 Joshua Cohen invented a lamp where the powder was ignited with a battery.

I think that there remained a terrifying aspect to these flash guns.  There is highly demonstrative video showing one of these lamps in action.  In the history of photography there were more than a few fatalities from these lamps.

 

 

 

A vist to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Home and Museum

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Figure 1 - Rhinoceros Boston, MA, IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2013.

Figure 1 – Rhinoceros Boston, MA, IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2013.

One of Boston’s true gems is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Home and Museum on the Fenway.  We are now further graced with the beautiful new wing by architect Renzo Piano. The collection, originally a private collection, is spectacular, if a bit quirky, as it reflects Gardner’s personal taste.  She mandated that the museum, in what is referred to as “The Castle,” remain unchanged.  This has and continues to cause problems.  The lighting is terrible and people are dangerously close to the art.  Still, it remains an absolute must see – especially the indoor courtyard and garden, which can be a cathartic retreat, especially in winter.  Also the concert venue is gorgeous. BTW – my wife and I split in our reviews of the restaurant, me thumbs up, her thumbs down.

There is one major problem, however – no photography allowed – “the unkindest cut of all.”  So I had to leave my camera at home.  I could have carried it through the museum – but, really what for.  As we exited the museum and walked back to the parking garage and past the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, I just couldn’t resist any longer the need to photograph.  Out popped my IPhone, and I amused myself with the two photographs shown here, one of the rhinoceros sculpture and the other of the courtyard tile work, perhaps reflecting on the maze at Chartres.

The Iphone is an always ready and fun camera.  As discussed before it is wonderful for taking true verticals.  I think that if one looks closely at the rhinoceros you can see the limitation of eight bit depth images.  The dynamic range is not quite there and the tonal quality flattens. One way to clearly see this in your own work is to observe the discrete levels of the greyscale histogram.

Figure 2 - Circles, Boston, MA, IPhone photograph, (c) DE Wolf 2103.

Figure 2 – Circles, Boston, MA, IPhone photograph, (c) DE Wolf 2103.

English royal babies

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Figure 1 - Calotype of Queen Victoria with the princess royal c1844-45. The earliest known photograph of Victoria. Image from the Wikimedia Commons from the Royal Archives UK and in the public domain.

Figure 1 – Calotype of Queen Victoria with the princess royal c1844-45. The earliest known photograph of Victoria. Image from the Wikimedia Commons from the Royal Archives UK and in the public domain.

At this point the world awaits the birth of Prince William and Princess Kate’s baby and heir heir to the British throne.  The news coverage, or more accurately non-news coverage is endless.  So I got to wondering whether there was a first photograph of Queen Victoria with with a baby Edward, Prince of Wales.

So far I have not been able to find one.  But the story doesn’t end there.  Queen Victoria’s first child Alice Maud Mary was born in 1843. The earliest known photograph, a calotype, of Queen Victoria was taken some time between 1844 and 1845.  It is shown in Figure 1 and is, in fact, a joint portrait of the queen with the princess royal, who would at the time have been between one and two years old.  The image is beautiful.  It has that soft wistful quality that is typical of calotypes and is beautifully toned.  While the custom of the day was to show rigid faces there remains something very endearing both about the queen gesture. the way her arm holds her daughter, and the little doll.  The princess would certainly rather be playing!

Figure 2 - Photograph of the royal family in 1857. From the Wikicommons and the Royal Archives UK, in the public domain.

Figure 2 – Photograph of the royal family on May 26, 1857 by Caldesi and Montecchi. From the Wikicommons and the Royal Archives UK, in the public domain.

There is also a wonderful image from May 26, 1857 by Caldesi and Montecchi, showing the Queen and Prince Albert with all of their nine children.  This is shown in Figure 2. From left to right is: Alice, Arthur (later Duke of Connaught), The Prince Consort (Albert), The Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), Leopold (later Duke of Albany, in front of the Prince of Wales), Louise, Queen Victoria with Beatrice, Alfred (later Duke of Edinburgh), The Princess Royal (Victoria) and Helena. Again this appears to be a very gloom group.  However, there are some very charming aspects to this photograph.  The fact that everyone is not looking the camera, indeed Prince Albert is shown in profile, and the reflections in the window lend an informality, an almost candid quality, to the picture.

These images are further examples of the precious glimpses that we get of life in the nineteenth century during the first twenty years of photography.  In some respects the sitters seem not quite sure how to deal with this new spontaneous medium. Many things, like photography, were evolving rapidly.  Perhaps that is the most important lesson that we can learn from these pictures and think about when the new royal baby is born, indeed when any new baby comes into the world.  There was a time when for Princess Alice in the first figure and for Princess Beatrice in the second that the world was new and the possibilities infinite.