Category: The In between

the stuff you do for pictures

In Frank’s West

Posted on Posted in minimum daily requirement, On The Road, The In between, Theory, visual mindTagged , , , , ,

Cover to uncover… picture making method. Meaning within the frame. Understanding what comes from beyond the frame.

US 91, Leaving Blackfoot Idaho shows two young men picked up by the photographer. Though the men seem intently focussed on the road, the car windows are blank. A text by the English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon is in the visor; this Frank had copied down when he visited Dorothea Lange before he set off on his journey to find the heart of America.

one aspect of “reading” for understanding is in your covering items contained within the frame… What is lost

in this instance, it is very difficult to understand the text — it cannot be read .. it is mere squiggle. What would it be?

We have to leave the frame for the content..

That text reads: ‘The contemplation of things as they are/without error or confusion/without substitution or imposture/is in itself a nobler thing/than a whole harvest of invention.’

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/87174/u-s-91-leaving-blackfoot-idaho

For the second half of Dorothea Lange’s life, that quotation from the English philosopher Francis Bacon occupied space within her day. She pinned a printout of those words on her darkroom door in 1933. It remained there until she died, at 70, in 1965 — three months before her first retrospective opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York .

Referenced in publications

proof sheet: https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.78965.html

2 possible frames … chose the one without the space between the figures.

same configuration choice in next row of grouped figures.. make the group of one blob.. cluster into single tone pack

Robert Frank’s book, The Americans, is divided into 4 sections. Flags mark the divisions of the book.

  • Flag blowing.. Parade, 1955.. two people “looking” out of windows (First Chapter)
  • Flag hanging over stripe shirt, and… Fourth of July, Jay, New York.
  • Flag as shade… Backyard, Venice West, California.. just two pages after Bar, Detroit.
  • Tuba player… 1956, Political Rally, Chicago (Fourth Chapter)

Robert Frank (b. 1924) traveled across the United States to photograph, as he wrote, “the kind of civilization born here and spreading elsewhere.” During his nine-month journey, he took 767 rolls of film (more than 27,000 images) and made more than 1,000 work prints. He then spent a year editing, selecting, and sequencing the photographs, linking them thematically, conceptually, formally, emotionally, and linguistically. https://www.sfmoma.org/press/release/sfmoma-presents-looking-in-robert-franks-the-amer/

picture post: Dog Days

Posted on Posted in On The Road, picture post, The In between1 Comment

anywhere you go — drive in the areas I call 17miles, you find a dog … on the road.

from Life on Location. ongoing, although slower going these days. Intermixed in this are some of the “glove” shots. More of those, after I finish my wonders about finding footsteps of others.

None of these are gold toned. They aren’t silver prints, they are digital to ink-on-paper.

Notes on Gold Toning for Blue color of Silver Gelatin (AgX) prints— side note:

For those of you emphatically report that Gold toning isn’t blue.

“…blue toning with gold is the common method for toning large prints designed for public exhibitionl”

Maybe you should look outside your wading pool.

Update: I intended to post specifics of my 2005 tests about toning. Have decided that it is best to leave to those interested enough to request them. They formed the basis of my “digital toning” method/ palette. Armed with reflection and a reflection densitometer, inspection lights (two different colors) and you too will be able to make your conversion of chemical print to digital printing.

For those continuing their reading in chemical photography, the distinction between physical development and chemical development will widen your understanding of the nature of development (amplification of latent image).

References:

  • James and Vaneslow, ” The Rate of Solution of Silver Halide Grains in a Developer,” PHot. Sci. and Tech., (11) 2:1935 (1955).
  • James and Vaneselow, “The Role of Silver Halide Solvents in Practical Development,” PHot. Eng., 7:90 (1956).
  • James and Vanselow, “The influence of the Developmet Mechanism on the Color and Morphology of Developed Silver,” Phot. Sci. and Eng., 1:104 (1958)
  • G. C Farnell, “The Consequences of Solution Effects in Conventional Developers”, J. PHot. Sci., 21: 145 (1973)