Re: [Leica] glass plate negs

["Dan Post" <dwpost@email.msn.com>]

Kevin-
Since I may wax long, I'll snip your post, but I hope if it was 'deleted' in
anyones mailbox before reading, that they will go back and read it! Just
yesterday, I was telling the daughter of one of our 'Breakfast Circle', a
round table of photographers that meets every Wednesday morning at a local
pancake house, about my fascination with the 19th century photographers and
what they had to go through to make a single negative.
Most people today have, simply, no clue as to the work involved in makng
those glass plates, especially the 'wet' type that were used from about 1860
to the late 1880's when the 'dry' plate was develped. The thought of the
dedication of someone like Timothy O'Sullivan, who would go to the wilds of
Wyoming from as far away as St. Louis, carrying colloidion, chemicals, glass
plates and what we would consider a HUGE camera, in a wagon darkroom that
was unheated in the winter, and certainly un- air conditioned in the summer.
He trekked over a thousand miles with this 'kit' and recorded the pristine
beauty of the west, images that still amaze quite a few to this day.
The significance of these images, and I am sure no one remembers what BRAND
of camera he used, or who made the glass plates, but it was this historical,
and aesthetic content we remember. I am sure in 2090, if there are enough
B&W negatives around to be collected, that the brand of camera, and film
will be of minor importance- it will be the vision, and dedication of the
photographer that will be remembered.
Say- what brand of film did HCB use in the 30's? Does anyone remember? What
film did Imogen Cunningham use? Did Dorothea Lange, in taking the famous
'Migrant Mother' photo use a, what? Rollei? Kodak? What film? Was it even
recorded? For years, it has been that image that has been the most requested
from the Library of Congress, and an inspiration, even to me- yet the camera
and film used is, to me, no consideration whatsoever! And that was only
about 65 years ago!
I think that the future, and their photographers and historians will, like
you, consider the aesthetic and historical value of these 'slices' of time,
rather than the equipment used to obtain them.
Leicas notwithstanding, it is the eye behind the camera, and the talents of
the hand holding the camera that makes the REAL difference.
Dan
- - Duke of the Nomex Knickers