What’s Gonna Happen to Your Photographs?

[Steve M.]

I threw away a lot of negs about 6 months ago, and I continually go through my prints and throw away the ones that need to be thrown away. It's a cleansing thing for me for sure. Edit, edit, edit!

This didn't need to be done when I was drawing, painting or printing. The painting that didn't work out got painted over, and the drawings and prints that were duds got thrown away right then. It's funny how photographs are so different in this regard. Probably because you can take a photograph in an instant, while a painting took from a day to years, and a print was a very involved process too.

Now I'm doing pottery, and the work that fails when it comes out of the kiln gets smashed into tiny pieces, an activity that I like very much. Years ago I had an art book that had all sorts of naive sayings in it, but one that I remember was "Failure is simply success on a level that we don't yet understand". That works for art, but not for things like heart surgery. I also remember an artist that stated that anything less than a masterpiece was less than that. That's the way to look at it. If it doesn't really, really resonate, it's crap.

 

[Godfrey]

"Publish or perish."

Anything that I've finished and consider to be of sufficient quality and intent to have survive me, I publish and register with the Library of Congress. They'll preserve it. Whether anyone ever looks at it is a different matter.

Anything else, whether I've rendered it or not, is up to whomever deals with my estate. I won't be worrying about it anymore at that point.

I regularly put together small collections of photos, annotate them, and send them to family and friends who might want them. But most of my friends and family who matter are around my age ... once we're all gone, the rest is ephemeral to anyone else beyond maybe their children and grandchildren.

Nothing is permanent, nothing lasts forever.

G

 

[Larry Cloetta]

Nothing is permanent, nothing lasts forever.

G

Taxes. Taxes last forever. And toe fungus.

 

[Calzone]

It's sad to think that so much photography will vanish. Museums and universities only want collections that arrive along with a six-figure check to help handle management and scholarship around a collection. Even within Universities they have trouble managing their own collections built by staff photographers like me. I shudder at the number of prints and negatives that have been disposed of over the years.

When I die I suspect my work will live a short time in one of the kid's closet or attic and then eventually go to the landfill. The only photographic evidence of mine will be those images in private collections and museums that own a print. Perhaps the best chance for long term survival is on the internet...

Steve,

At a gallery workshop I learn that if an artist wants to donate work to a museum that a museum does not want to burdened. All the documentation, storage, and crating creates a lot of work and is/becomes a liability.

Sadly you can't give your work away so easily. You are lucky that some have taken on the responsibility.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

It is not uncommon for artists to destroy their own work. I only have a few of my paintings from back in the day when I was a painter. Sadly they reside in public storage. Pretty much the only value is to me at this point.

I print so I'm about to do a purge and destroy some of my earlier work. Today I'm a better printer and I want to get rid of stuff I would call "work prints."

I'm cool with only trying to keep only my best work. If I ever get discovered I only want the good stuff and my best work shown.

An art dealer showed me a Robert Franks print that was from the series "The Americans." It was a test print and had dirt/dust on the negative. This print should have been destroyed long ago IMHO. Not everything you do is good work or a finished product.

There is a word called "emphemera." Some things were never made to endure. I have two vintage prints from Bruce Davidson that have the Magnum Stamp with a date penned in. Evidently these 6x9 prints were promotional items and were never intended to be collected, but the twist here is the rarity. I would speculate that these small vintage prints might be more valuable that a modern large print that I could acquire today from Magnum. Pretty much hard to value because none are available and they are rare.

The two images I have are from the Welsh Coal Miners series shot in 1967 or so. One is of the little boy with a stroller and doll, and the other is of the little girl with this motion blur by a tombstone.

I had the opportunity to ask Bruce Davidson, "What was the little girl doing when you took the shot?" and Bruce Davidson said, "Singing."

For me I consider some shots just emphemera, and some I hope one day will be treasure.

Another thing I learned from the Gallery Workshop is that it is wise to retain an artist proof for your estate, and it was hammered home that sometimes it i wise to retain a second artist proof just in case a miracle happens and say a curator wants to give you a retrospective that a huge body of work is readily available.

What also got stressed was the amount of record keeping and documenting required. Basically maintaining an archive is mucho important to museums, collectors, and curators.

Cal

 

[raid]

Life continues and things change with time. Nothings stays forever.
Our images make us happy while we are alive, and this is a sufficient reward for me. If we are lucky, then some of our images somehow stay around on the internet so that others may view them one day.

 

[Bill Clark]

It is not uncommon for artists to destroy their own work.

Then I should be one terrific artist because I’ve destroyed much of my work. Ha!

But then again, as I’ve said before, my best friend in the darkroom is the waste basket!

With digital, using photoshop, changes I make to a file I use the “save as” choice then after the file name I’ll insert c1or c2 and so on as I make changes. For me, this means corrected 1, 2 and so on. This is before .jpeg. I do have the RAW file just in case.

 

[johannielscom]

My two children will have digital files to rummage to, and corresponding digital originals and negatives are easily coded so they can be located without too much hassle. It's like a digital contact sheet. That way it should be easy for them to decide which images they'd like to keep and where to find them.

The trick is to scan every image in low res and name the images consistently with the date of scanning. I've written an article on how to organise both digital film and negatives with that single naming convention.

 

[Calzone]

Then I should be one terrific artist because I’ve destroyed much of my work. Ha!

But then again, as I’ve said before, my best friend in the darkroom is the waste basket!

Bill,

About 8-9 years ago my gal and I decided to move to Madhattan from a row house in Queens. We decided to downsize a head of retirement, and it was a very smart thing to do.

For me it was difficult because I grew up poor and was a hoarder. I had old clothes I kept just in case I needed to do an oil change on a car, but the fact remained that I no longer owned a car.

In the end downsizing made me concentrate on what is important, and what makes me happy. Seems like I dragged around a lot of clutter for no good reason. I also finally realized I'm no longer poor.

It also felt good donating so much to the poor, and helping others. Much of our belongins we simply put out in our front yard with a sign, "FREE." I have little remorse and all these years wish I would of kept perhaps two or three items.

I think anything that involves craft means that some waste has to be produced. Printing is expensive, but at this point I have no problem getting rid of old stuff.

Possessions can be a liability.

Cal

 

[MIkhail]

I had the opportunity to ask Bruce Davidson, "What was the little girl doing when you took the shot?" and Bruce Davidson said, "Singing."


Cal

Can i ask a question related to this. There are known several shots of this girl on cemetery. My question is, and it's been asked before: why is she wearing a different dress on different shots? Do you know, by chance? Were they taken in different days?
Thank you in advance.

 

[Calzone]

Can i ask a question related to this. There are known several shots of this girl on cemetery. My question is, and it's been asked before: why is she wearing a different dress on different shots? Do you know, by chance? Were they taken in different days?
Thank you in advance.

Mikhail,

I'm no expert, but it does seem like two different shots on different days.

Thanks for assembling these shots. In the past I have seen the right B&W shot in color, but I assume the original shot might have been taken with color film and then printed in both B&W and color. Both my prints have 1967 penned in on the Magnum stamp.

What you present is a different spin.

I think the motion blur of the little girl presents a sense of mystery and adds something dynamic. I also love the B&W version better.

I got my two prints in a trade for camera gear with an art dealer. He had a collection of these 6x9 vintage prints, all from the Welsh Coal Miner series. This art dealer showed me this addressed postmarked envelope with a letter to a doctor, and a photograph of said doctor with Bruce Davidson on safari in Africa to establish that they were friends.

He mentioned that he showed this to "David" a guy who use to work for Magnum and knew Bruce Davidson at a professional level. Dave left Magnum and opened up a high end art bookstore here in NYC. I would get to meet Dave at a later date. The shop has a buzzer that controls access like when going to a high end jewelry store.

So backing up, David's response when shown the vintage prints was: "How did you get these prints?;" and "Are they real?"

Basically that's how rare they are today. Once enphemera: now rare treasure.

My art dealer friend asked David if he should approach Bruce Davidson to try and have them signed, but David said don't do that because they might get torn in half and destroyed on purpose because of bitterness of being undercompensated, not getting his due, and especially missing out on the fine art print and fine art markets that would get developed later.

The Welsh Mining Series was created because when Bruce Davidson was in the Army another soldier told him if he wanted to see a poor depressing and blighted area of the world he should go visit this Welsh Mining town. I learned this at a Bruce Davidson presentation where he discussed his career.

My friend the art dealer has an interesting story. He once worked on Madison Avenue for some ad agency. He made his boss and his agency lots of money, but one day he was kinda fed-up and was shown the door after some blow-out of sorts. Not only was he suddenly out of work, but his wife was also in the hospital at that time.

He wanders into a thrift shop feeling vacant and lost and then sees a poster that looks like it had a Keith Haring painting painted over it. He calls his wife in her hospital bed and mentions what he just found.

Kieth Haring was known to paint over posters when he was an art student at the school of visual arts. The price was $235.00, but their credit card had only $180.00 left on it, and somehow he was able to secure the painted over poster for said $180.00, partly because he knew the owner of the shop.

This poster later he sold at Sotheby's for $45K. Since then all he has done was be an art dealer with no day-job. Today I happen to live one block away from where Bruce Davidson shot the horrific poverty of 1969 on East 100th Street.

My take on all this is that the world is not that big, and all kinds of stuff happens, especially here in NYC. Pretty much anything can happen.

Cal

 

[MIkhail]

Cal

Very interesting, thank you for taking time.
I know of some similar stories too, not as dramatic but interesting, when people find things like that.
I myself once bought a gallery framed print on garage-sale which I liked, and then when I googled much later, probably 5 years later, it turned out to be Alfred Eisenstaedt "Girl with a fish" This one.

I doubt it has a high value, but more than 5 bucks that I spent....
It happens.

 

[B-9]

By the sounds of it,

I need to start a larger archive,

I will save your photos!

Send them over!

 

[Darthfeeble]

Print, print, PRINT!

 

[Archiver]

This question comes to mind every now and again, as I migrate my collection to larger and larger harddrives. As my username implies, my primary intention for photography is to archive my life. Whether that will be of interest to anyone else is not really relevant. If I create some artistic or aesthetically pleasing images along the way, all the better.

As I shoot constantly, much of my photography is repetitive and could easily be discarded by others. Some of it will show how Melbourne has changed over the years, along with the countries I've visited; there are a fair number of flickr accounts devoted to posting decades old found photography of different countries, so maybe some of my work might end up there.

As I get older (gee, I never thought I'd say that), I am looking more at printing my work and labeling everything in albums so there's a physical output, maybe a 'best of' compilation organized by year.

In decades to come, I expect to amass many terabytes of photos and video. My paid work will live on in the wayback machine and the internet archive, but my personal work will probably vanish, unless someone takes up the opportunity to compile my biography with my output, which is rather unlikely. My desire for the longevity of my work is tempered by the understanding that it would be of interest to a very limited audience.

 

[sreed2006]

I have a massive disorganized collection of prints, slides, and negatives, plus a terabyte or two of digital photographs. My keeper ratio, if I am honest about it, is less than 1 keeper per 100 pictures. Seriously, though, even handing off even just 1,000 "keepers" to my children after I'm dead and gone would be a joke - they would not know what to do with that many. I see sorting and tossing in my near future. I should have been doing it for a long time now, but laziness has gotten in the way.

 

[Rayt]

I tend to keep an entire roll of b/w negs even when there is only one good shot. When I shot slides I only kept that one mounted frame. I don't know why but for b/w negs I can't get myself to edit as I go and as a result have nearly 1000 pages in archival binders. I should start editing and only keep that one strip containing the keeper. This way I'll be left with something more manageable and am sure 99% of it would disappear.

 

[Calzone]

Very interesting, thank you for taking time.
I know of some similar stories too, not as dramatic but interesting, when people find things like that.
I myself once bought a gallery framed print on garage-sale which I liked, and then when I googled much later, probably 5 years later, it turned out to be Alfred Eisenstaedt "Girl with a fish" This one.

I doubt it has a high value, but more than 5 bucks that I spent....
It happens.

Mikhail,

Great find.

Our stories are like episodes of "Antique Roadshow" on PBS.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

This question comes to mind every now and again, as I migrate my collection to larger and larger harddrives. As my username implies, my primary intention for photography is to archive my life. Whether that will be of interest to anyone else is not really relevant. If I create some artistic or aesthetically pleasing images along the way, all the better.

As I shoot constantly, much of my photography is repetitive and could easily be discarded by others. Some of it will show how Melbourne has changed over the years, along with the countries I've visited; there are a fair number of flickr accounts devoted to posting decades old found photography of different countries, so maybe some of my work might end up there.

As I get older (gee, I never thought I'd say that), I am looking more at printing my work and labeling everything in albums so there's a physical output, maybe a 'best of' compilation organized by year.

In decades to come, I expect to amass many terabytes of photos and video. My paid work will live on in the wayback machine and the internet archive, but my personal work will probably vanish, unless someone takes up the opportunity to compile my biography with my output, which is rather unlikely. My desire for the longevity of my work is tempered by the understanding that it would be of interest to a very limited audience.

Archiver,

I use to identify as an artist, but I see now how I really have worked as a documentary "ethnographer" who has recorded "history" from a particular perspective. The location is NYC; and my perspective is that of someone who has struggled in the arts all his life, worked a day-job to support himself, and somehow inadvertently has been involved with and become a gentrifier.

I don't really see my work being represented by a gallery anymore. A lot of my shots are of places that no longer exist, and somehow now they are valuable historical photographs.

In the end "Time is the best editor."

I know I'm not alone here. Some of us concentrated on image capture with a disregard to printing. Most of my work remain negatives that I will wet print later. Currently I have been concentrating on printing digitally in a fine art print manner where I have developed my skills using Piezography and printing big. I'll be printing limited editions shortly.

The deeper meaning to my work is with all the displacement and moving around as a gentrifier, my photography adds to my life a sense of permanence that otherwise would not exist. Seems likely that I will have to leave NYC as I retire because I rent and the lifestyle I enjoy is no longer sustainable.

One day I will have to leave, and these photographs will be my sense of having a home to take with me. In a way I feel a sense of homelessness because of constant displacement.

It annoys me because I helped redevelop a city that almost was bankrupt like Detroit. Back in the 70's I built lofts in SoHo when it was an abandoned warehouse district. I helped redevelop Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Long Island City, and currently East Harlem. I added to the culture and the literary, visual, and performance arts to enrich this city, yet remain under the radar.

I like to think that I am a one man tourist attraction, because visitors to NYC come here to meet people like me, but I'm being shown the door. The new comers lately are just the wealthy. All they bring is their privilage and a sense of entitlement. In a way NYC is becoming "Suburbanized."

Cal

 

[willie_901]

"Publish or perish."

Anything that I've finished and consider to be of sufficient quality and intent to have survive me, I publish and register with the Library of Congress. They'll preserve it. Whether anyone ever looks at it is a different matter.

...

Brilliant!