Large bodies of work

[lukitas]

I knew Gary Winogrand left a body of work too large to oversee. Vivian Maier is another of whose work we only get to see an infinitesimal part. Recently, I discovered Eugene Smith couldn't stop shooting either. I'm quite a busy bee myself.

Which made me wonder about large collections of photographs. Thousands, not hundreds. Too much for an exhibition, too much for a book. A blog is nice, but it is limited by the size of a screen. Heavy editing, and a book with lots of pages will get you somewhere, but how much of a book can one make before going broke? How does one go about presenting a large body of work to as wide an audience as possible?

Cheers

 

[x-ray]

Several years ago I started thinking about what would eventually happen to my work. I've documented the culture of Appalachia since I was young and photographed in depth many things that no longer exist but are historically important. I photographed moonshiners making their whiskey, serpent handling church services, cock fights and kkk cross burnings to name a few. I was afraid my son would toss them in the corner or worse in the trash.

I contacted the historic society and museum in my region and the initially did a show of 95 silver gelatin prints that tour other museums and are used for study by both colleges and high schools. The museum wanted to house my entire library of Appalachian work and preserve it for educational purposes. We worked out an arrangement and they will be receiving well over 100,000 negatives and prints on my passing.

In addition Vanderbilt University has expressed an interest in the work and the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville is now purchasing archival silver gelatin prints of selected negs to form a new collection in the museum.

This is one approach if the images have historic value.

 

[mdarnton]

I once worked on a newspaper in an obscure rural area. All of those negs are going to the Library regional history section of the nearby university, eventually. They will be easy to figure out because they're dated and that matches the dates of the papers they were published in and captioned, so I'm less concerned about that part of the work.

Another nice example of this problem is James Ravelious' thousands of photos from several decades documenting rural English life. Everything he marked as "good" in his collection is on the web here: http://www.beaford-arts.org.uk/archive/ but to see it you have to keep refreshing the page and look through the dozen or so photos in the gallery, which change with each refresh. It's too bad there's not a more organized viewing method--just the ability to page through them all in numerical order would be great--but I take what I can get.

 

[Hsg]

If the body of work is any good, there is a good chance that it might find its audience.

 

[Out to Lunch]

I have a box set of August Sander, ''People of the 20th Century'' on my shelf. This is a huge work of incredible quality.

 

[Lauffray]

If you're lucky, someone will discover them eventually and do that work for you, such as with Vivian Maier and Saul Leiter. For the rest of us, probably editing ourselves, printing, making small series and sets, maybe a book (not a 500p thing, something small)

 

[airfrogusmc]

Most worked in smaller bodies of work.

Winograd had books and shows to support the books. As did Gibson, Davidson Adams, Evans, Bresson, Friedlander Callahan, W.Eugene Smith and most others
Quick examples
Winogrand
The Animals
Woman are Beautiful
Public Relations
The Rodeo
etc

Gibson
Days at Sea
Tropism
Infanta
etc

Davidson
Time of Change
Brooklyn Gang
East 100th St
Subway

 

[Darthfeeble]

Make books. It's reasonably cheap to do and is a lasting media. Who knows what sort of devices will be in use in 50 or even 25 years from know. Folks will still have their eyes.

 

[mfogiel]

If you have a large body of work, select 100 photographs and make a book. 50 are even better. Read the article below.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepa...s-the-purpose-of-taking-more-photographs.html

 

[Calzone]

Time is a great editor. I have no problem just making negatives and printing them years into the future.

I shoot a lot, because iconic images, the ones that can't be forgotten, that persist in memory, are rather few. One day I'll do the edit that Marek suggests. But know in my work are a lot of turds that do not have much meaning.

The idea of donating my negatives to a historical society kinda makes sense and is helpful. I've been documenting changes in NYC during the housing boom and redevelopment as New York gets suburbanized and sanitized.

A lot of my work deals with urban decay and abandonement.

Cal

 

[cz23]

...Read the article below.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepa...s-the-purpose-of-taking-more-photographs.html

"...shoot more and show less." What a good motto.

John

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I knew Gary Winogrand left a body of work too large to oversee. Vivian Maier is another of whose work we only get to see an infinitesimal part. Recently, I discovered Eugene Smith couldn't stop shooting either. I'm quite a busy bee myself.

How does one go about presenting a large body of work to as wide an audience as possible?

Cheers

Don't know about Smith, but Gary and Vivian were more less full time photographers. One has some lessons to teach another some kids to look after, but they spend years on the street with camera. Thousands of negatives is normal due to this.

Almost any long time photographer will have this amount at the end.
Even Yousuf Karsh has left over 150K negatives. And many of them are 8x10. He took over 15K portrait sessions.

One of the interim students at his Ottawa Studio left to stay and worked on organizing of Karsh negatives and such.

Since you are on digital environment it is less difficult. Get tag for each photo and make sure the media files are in sync with tags database. And it is secure and protected from loss. Not just files, but associated with them tags DB.
It will help eventually.

I'm not expert on photo services and applications available for general public. I work in broadcast where archives are part of the infrastructure. Audio, video and still images are organized by Media Asset Management solutions (very expensive). The idea is to describe each media with as many tags as possible and organize them in searchable categories. Very similar to search engines on stock photography online services.

I wonder if any light versions of MAM are available for general public.
But even having pictures organized in LR with tags on your computer and uploading to Flickr with tags following uploaded photo helps.

 

[Thardy]

Several years ago I started thinking about what would eventually happen to my work. I've documented the culture of Appalachia since I was young and photographed in depth many things that no longer exist but are historically important. I photographed moonshiners making their whiskey, serpent handling church services, cock fights and kkk cross burnings to name a few. I was afraid my son would toss them in the corner or worse in the trash.

I contacted the historic society and museum in my region and the initially did a show of 95 silver gelatin prints that tour other museums and are used for study by both colleges and high schools. The museum wanted to house my entire library of Appalachian work and preserve it for educational purposes. We worked out an arrangement and they will be receiving well over 100,000 negatives and prints on my passing.

In addition Vanderbilt University has expressed an interest in the work and the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville is now purchasing archival silver gelatin prints of selected negs to form a new collection in the museum.

This is one approach if the images have historic value.

What's the time frame of the prints being placed in the Tennessee State Museum? I'd like to see them.

 

[x-ray]

What's the time frame of the prints being placed in the Tennessee State Museum? I'd like to see them.

There are several there now but I don't know if they're on exhibit at the moment.

I think the full show is in Tullahoma but not sure of where or how long. The show consists of 94 silver gelatin prints and sound recordings. You can contact Michelle McDonald at the East Tennessee Historical Society and asks her where it is at the moment. I saw her a couple of weeks ago and she said the show is going to be retired soon. It's been on tour since 2009.

You might also contact the Renee White at the Tennessee state museum. I was in Nashville Tuesday and Wednesday of this week but didn't have a chance to stop by.

If you're in the Knoxville area I'd be happy to give a private showing of the images. You can PM me or email and let me know if you're in the area.

Hope it's close to you and hope you enjoy it and thanks for asking.

 

[Thardy]

There are several there now but I don't know if they're on exhibit at the moment.

I think the full show is in Tullahoma but not sure of where or how long. The show consists of 94 silver gelatin prints and sound recordings. You can contact Michelle McDonald at the East Tennessee Historical Society and asks her where it is at the moment. I saw her a couple of weeks ago and she said the show is going to be retired soon. It's been on tour since 2009.

You might also contact the Renee White at the Tennessee state museum. I was in Nashville Tuesday and Wednesday of this week but didn't have a chance to stop by.

If you're in the Knoxville area I'd be happy to give a private showing of the images. You can PM me or email and let me know if you're in the area.

Hope it's close to you and hope you enjoy it and thanks for asking.

Thanks. I live relatively close to Tullahoma and visit Nashville frequently. I'll try to catch the exhibit before it's retired .

 

[Big Ursus]

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad...otographs.html

Thanks, there's a great discussion at that site.