Vics
Veteran
Please forgive me if this has already been posted!
http://pavel-kosenko.livejournal.com/303194.html?thread=22669914
http://pavel-kosenko.livejournal.com/303194.html?thread=22669914
Kodachrome 4x5 1942
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Pablito
coco frío
It is interesting to see the HUGE difference in the quality of the images taken by the former FSA photographers working for OWI (Jack Delano, Russell Lee, Louise Rosskam) and the OWI propaganda photographers (Palmer, Hollem..) The photos by the former group are gritty, real and powerful, the ones by the later group are cheesy, kitschy propaganda. Just look at the bright red nail polish the women!
literiter
Well-known
The thing that all these photographs do for me is the beautiful way they bring the past into the present.
All are over 66 years old and you are taken back there.
Just think; When digital photographs can emulate a 66+ year old 4x5 Kodachrome will be the day we can say we finally have arrived.
All are over 66 years old and you are taken back there.
Just think; When digital photographs can emulate a 66+ year old 4x5 Kodachrome will be the day we can say we finally have arrived.
f6andBthere
Well-known
Yes!
Cheesy aspect aside these are a reminder that not a lot has changed in photography. No doubt a digital image with the appropriate plug in can probably duplicate this look but considering the evolution of how we record images these are impressive.
35mmdelux
Veni, vidi, vici
Nice posed shots of yesteryear. Many thanks -
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Ansel Adams actually shot a lot of 4x5 Kodachrome! Many of them were published in the book Ansel Adams in Color.
KenR
Well-known
These guys were masters of lighting - amazing views. Where will the digital files be in 60 years? Most will be long gone. 1s and 0s demagnatized and faded into unreadable random bits of nothingness.
Pablito
coco frío
Pablito
coco frío
Well, some were and some weren't.
Old and historical or even quaint does not make it good photography; it's not good or great or amazing because it's old and historic. "The look" is one thing, the photograph is another. There is a big range in these images; lumping them all together rather than subjecting them to critical analysis is not very interesting, at least to me.
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
For the most part the lighting is pretty damn masterful. I've seen prints from Kodachromes by Delano and some others ... they are wonderful.
Not sure that, as a class, pigment prints will outlast Kodachromes.
Not sure that, as a class, pigment prints will outlast Kodachromes.
Pablito
coco frío
They were lit almost exclusively with off camera flash BULBS, sometimes in reflectors sometimes just bare bulbs.
Frank Petronio
Well-known
To me, Kodachrome looks a lot like digital, because it is so harsh it cuts out most of the subtle information in an image. I know we are all supposed to sob over its loss but good riddance IMHO, I had to shoot way too much of it and it sucked.
I think you're being a little hard on Palmer and if you've looked at more than the highlights of the FSA, all the revered "greats" did tons of boring, monotonous, and dumb pictures too.
To the cheesy shot's credit, those are incredibly hard to do given the lighting constraints and equipment, the low ASA, the harshness of the Kodachrome, the inability of proof, etc. versus going out with a handheld Graphic and shooting existing light B&W. So while the expressions in the OWI shots are stilted and the people are overly posed, those photos convey an awful lot of information about the texture and detail of life in WW2 and are equally valuable to me.
You're also confusing the pictures made in the depression of poor souls, the down and outers, Negros, etc. compared to the war time photos where everybody fell in line and made propaganda happy pictures - even the "greats". There are very few negative photos from any of them from 1941-45. You'd be a lot more appropriate to comment how emotionally moving the Depression era photos are compared to the happy positiveness of the War photos - done by all those photographers. And not having lived through that, I can't help but think that a little positiveness must have been helpful in those terrible days.
Not to blast you but I think it's easy to fall for a revisionistic politically-correct version of the events....
As for the film outlasting digital, Kodachromes may last a couple of hundred years kept in the dark but what good are they doing there? They only way people will see them is if they are scanned and online/printed. Most of the rest of the last 60 years of commercial photography will probably get tossed out, a lot of the B&W was never properly fixed or made on RC, and those early color negs and Ektachromes are probably already faded to yellow acetates....
I think you're being a little hard on Palmer and if you've looked at more than the highlights of the FSA, all the revered "greats" did tons of boring, monotonous, and dumb pictures too.
To the cheesy shot's credit, those are incredibly hard to do given the lighting constraints and equipment, the low ASA, the harshness of the Kodachrome, the inability of proof, etc. versus going out with a handheld Graphic and shooting existing light B&W. So while the expressions in the OWI shots are stilted and the people are overly posed, those photos convey an awful lot of information about the texture and detail of life in WW2 and are equally valuable to me.
You're also confusing the pictures made in the depression of poor souls, the down and outers, Negros, etc. compared to the war time photos where everybody fell in line and made propaganda happy pictures - even the "greats". There are very few negative photos from any of them from 1941-45. You'd be a lot more appropriate to comment how emotionally moving the Depression era photos are compared to the happy positiveness of the War photos - done by all those photographers. And not having lived through that, I can't help but think that a little positiveness must have been helpful in those terrible days.
Not to blast you but I think it's easy to fall for a revisionistic politically-correct version of the events....
As for the film outlasting digital, Kodachromes may last a couple of hundred years kept in the dark but what good are they doing there? They only way people will see them is if they are scanned and online/printed. Most of the rest of the last 60 years of commercial photography will probably get tossed out, a lot of the B&W was never properly fixed or made on RC, and those early color negs and Ektachromes are probably already faded to yellow acetates....
bigeye
Well-known
They're here now. Not video games, not simulation, not make believe.
Guessing what a "digital pigment print" (whatever that is) will be like in 60yrs is pure conjecture (bullshiet).
.
Vics
Veteran
Was Kodachrome commercially available in large formats? I had thought it was only 135 until the '80s or so when they brought it out in 120.
Rogier
Rogier Willems
Amazing quality.
And look at the labor provided by Women during the war!
Its a shame they were send right back to the kitchen after the war...
And look at the labor provided by Women during the war!
Its a shame they were send right back to the kitchen after the war...
Pablito
coco frío
Well, NOW this is getting interesting. Actually, Frank, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I am not confusing FSA photos of the depression, made earlier, with OWI images made later. I know very well, actually inside and out, the historical details of this period, photographically speaking.
I don't think of the earlier FSA work as "negative," for one thing, even though the photographers were documenting some very hard times. I do agree they are very emotionally moving, powerful and humanistic. Furthermore, they continue to be powerful and relevant today, as contemporary photographers and researchers go back and find the same people, the same places, do comparative work, interviews, etc. Even today, the FSA work is helping people get in touch with who they are and where they came from.
As for "the greats" doing boring, monotonous and dumb pictures, well, so do we all. Film was sent back to the labs in Washington to be developed, and everything ended up in "the file." Stryker apparently "killed" some Evans images and others toward the beginning of the FSA but by the peak years of FSA (after Evans and Lange had gone) he had come to realize that was not a good practice. He was not a photographer, he too had a lot to learn. So all sorts of stuff ended up in the file, a lot was kept strictly for its documentary value. Photographers shot FAR fewer frames / sheets than today and most if got into the file, without much editing.
What I find very interesting is your accusation that I am falling for the PC revisionist version of events. Well perhaps I was not clear enough because that is not the case. I have argued AGAINST this position (that it was all gov't propaganda) for a long time. Also very interesting, your comment, "not having lived through that, I can't help but think that a little positiveness must have been helpful in those terrible days." Here I think you are right on target. I resist the general notion that all the OWI work was "just" government propaganda. Look what was at stake. This work was important - keeping up morale was important. Recognizing and paying tribute to the great strengths of the country was important. HOWEVER, some of the photographers, while technically competent, DID over-pose their subjects, did over-sentimentalize, did produce stilted images. To me, those images do convey a lot of information but ultimately become period kitsch. Oh, I like kitsch, but it's still kitsch. Whereas other OWI photogaphers, many of them who cut their teeth at FSA produced positive, uplifting pro-war effort images that nevertheless got beneath the glossy veneer and struck a much more human and empathetic chord. And actually, I think THOSE are the images that were the most effective as so-called "propaganda." THOSE images are not kitsch, they are timeless and univeral in appeal like any great work of art
Gordon Coale
Well-known
I've admired the Alfred T. Palmer pictures for some time. They are all at the Library of Congress in high resolution scans. I recently printed some up as 16x20s and they were still over 400dpi. They make beautiful prints!
divewizard
perspicaz
I believe all of the images in that blog post were copied from here. There are many more.
I first saw these several years ago and was very impressed by the quality. Not only did the photographers do a good job making these images long before I was born, someone since has done a very good job scanning them.
I first saw these several years ago and was very impressed by the quality. Not only did the photographers do a good job making these images long before I was born, someone since has done a very good job scanning them.
Gordon Coale
Well-known
Pablito
coco frío
They are scanned by the Library of Congress. They are public domain because the photographers were government employees. Dozens of vendor on eBay sell prints. The sad part is when they don't bother to credit the photographers.
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