Negatives

[Harry Lime]

Joe Rosenthal
Flag raising on Iwo Jima, Feb. 23, 1945

Speed Graphic
4x5 negative

 

[Harry Lime]

Henri Cartier-Bresson
'Behind the Gare St.Lazare', 1932

Leica LTM / Elmar 3.5/50 (?)

 

[lynnb]

Wow, Harry. Where are the negs stored?
Thanks for posting!

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Where are these negatives? Are you the person holding them? Amazing to see these pieces of history. I have a book somewhere, it might be titled The Negative or something like that, and it had similar images of someone holding the negatives of famous images. I don't think these were in it if I remember correctly. Thanks for posting these!

 

[Harry Lime]

No, no. I'm not anywhere near them. 🙂

Over the years I've stumbled across picture of famous negatives and saved them.
Fascinating to see them instead of the print.


I thought it would be interesting to start a thread where we post the negative of a famous photo. They are out there on the internets, but not always easy to find.

But it really has to be a genuine picture of the real negative, not an invert of a print. And it has to be a famous image. 🙂

Have at it.

 

[Harry Lime]

Dorothea Lange
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, Calif. Mar. 1936

Graflex RB (?)
4x5 negative

 

[pakeha]

Have often looked at the positive from Dorothea Lange and thought the picture said so much..wow, so does the negative.
Great thread thank you

 

[maclaine]

Henri Cartier-Bresson
'Behind the Gare St.Lazare', 1932

Leica LTM / Elmar 3.5/50 (?)

Very interesting to see that, for a man who's so famous for never cropping his images, what is arguably his most famous image is, in fact, cropped. As I recall, in one of the documentaries on HCB, he discusses this photo, and how he had to quickly stick his camera through a fence to capture it. The part that's cropped out must be that pesky fence that got in his way.

 

[Harry Lime]

Very interesting to see that, for a man who's so famous for never cropping his images, what is arguably his most famous image is, in fact, cropped. As I recall, in one of the documentaries on HCB, he discusses this photo, and how he had to quickly stick his camera through a fence to capture it. The part that's cropped out must be that pesky fence that got in his way.

Yep it's cropped. You can see part of the fence on the right side of the frame. In the article that this image was attached to HCB was asked what happened to the missing sprocket holes. He relied that he had eaten them.

When the Germans overran France HCB supposedly buried his negatives. It is sometimes claimed that it was at this point that this negative and others were cut from their roll, but I think it may have happened earlier, sometime in the 1930's. I seem to remember reading somewhere that early on HCB did a drastic edit of his negs. Supposedly he purged the bad shots and clipped the winners from the rolls. Who knows what really happened...

 

[c.poulton]

This is something that's missing with digital capture: Negatives as well as contact sheets - it's great to see famous photographers work in context to what else that they shot on a roll and in what sequence - unless there is a store of the original RAW files that you can go back to open up.... (If indeed you can open up a RAW file in 20/30/40.. years time?)

 

[raydm6]

This was Frame #40. Looks like HCB's was #39? Late roll keepers 🙂

(Website link) "...The world's most famous negative. Korda used a Leica M2 with a 90 mm lens and Kodak Plus-X film. The famous image was captured on frame number 40."

 

[OurManInTangier]

Best thread idea for ages!

To see Joe's negative also brings to mind the size and cumbersome nature of the equipment guys like him were using whilst often under fire. Very impressive.

I had the idea that contact sheets were the ideal way to learn from another photographer drummed into me from my grandfather and again at college. It strips away alot of mystique initially but then can open up a realm of new thinking and creativity. What might we learn from some of these negs? Already that, perhaps, the early frames get you warmed up and later frames may be the keepers?😀

 

[Michael Markey]

Yep ...what Simon said.
Best thread for ages .

 

[MISH]

see the book, Celebrating the Negative, by John Loengard

http://www.amazon.com/Celebrating-N...59702826/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1357812710&s

and
The Contact Sheet by Steve Crist

http://www.amazon.com/Contact-Sheet.../ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357813344&sr

two very fine books

 

[maddoc]

Absolute great idea for a thread !! Maybe somebody can mark this as sticky ? 🙂

 

[Griffin]

This is something that's missing with digital capture: Negatives as well as contact sheets - it's great to see famous photographers work in context to what else that they shot on a roll and in what sequence - unless there is a store of the original RAW files that you can go back to open up.... (If indeed you can open up a RAW file in 20/30/40.. years time?)

Maybe we'll be showing each other electron microscope photographs of SSD storage sections.

 

[Photo_Smith]

One of my favourites from André Kertész

 

[SimonSawSunlight]

junku nishimura, accidental double exposures

 

[charjohncarter]

Harry, those are great as are the others. Somehow you expect these famous negatives to have a sparkle that your own don't. But they just look like normal negatives. That HCB negative looks even sub normal, but I'm sure I'm wrong.

I agree; great thread.

 

[jsrockit]

Cool thread... nice one SSS.