Re: [Leica] A Humbling Experience

[Mark Rabiner <mrabiner@concentric.net>]

"Glen M. Robinson" wrote:
> 
>      I just received a humbling experience.  My wife purchased a photo album at
> a garage sale yesterday that contained family portraits from Renaas Studio in
> Decorah, Iowa.  No one at the sale had a clue who these people are and the date
> when these pictures were taken, but based on the clothes they are wearing we
> guess that the photographs are at least a century old if not older.
> 
>      I have been an amateur photographer for forty or so years and have done my
> own darkroom work during much of this time.  I use Leicas, Rolleis, and Canons
> and enlarge my Ilford 100 Delta and Kodak Tri-X negatives processed with XTOL
> and D-76 with Schneider apo lenses.
> 
>      I am terribly humbled by these antique pictures; I cannot produce this type
> quality with my high tech gear.  The sharpness, gradation, and other visual
> characteristics of these prints are breathtaking.  I realize that these pictures
> are contact prints, but are the wonderful films and lenses that we use today in
> reality lower in quality in the essential operating parameters than those of
> that time?
> 
>      Glen Robinson

This exact thing happened to me 2 years ago. This album is composed of I
think 6by9 cm contact prints as the snapshots of the day most often
were. The area looks like Astoria Oregon in the 20's to 30's. The
quality and ambiance is way above anything I am doing or see being done.
I know we are all hot on our 35mm. But day one was larger negative
clunkers which made for a style of shooting and quality which does loop
de loops above our high tech or high end gear. What they mainly had
going for them was neg size, contact printing and the waist level
finder. They could not fool around with lighting. It had to be outside.
The results are Humbling. I'm going to find it now.
Mark Rabiner
It does make one realize the power, beauty and magic of the photographic process.