Category Archives: Essays on Photography

The up escalator

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Figure 1 - IPhone photograph of the escalator at the Cambridge Porter Square Red Line MBTA stop. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Figure 1 – IPhone photograph of the escalator at the Cambridge Porter Square Red Line MBTA stop. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Figure 1 is a photograph that I took while riding up the escalator at the Porter Square MBTA stop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Your alternative is to take the 199 step adjacent staircase. The longest span, the one shown, is 143 feet long. That’s 43.6 m.; so not anywhere near a record. The longest single-span escalator in the United States is at the Wheaton Station Stop on the Washington Metro Red Line, coming in at 230 feet or 70 m. The longest escalators in the world are installed in the Saint Petersburg Metro coming in at 449 feet or 137 m.

Arising from beneath the Earth in Cambridge, Massacchusetts the “Athens of America,” is instantly reminiscent of Dante rising at last from the depths of the underworld to once again see the stars.  

“The Guide and I into that hidden road

Now entered, to return to the bright world;

And without care of having any rest

We mounted up, he first and I the second,

Till I beheld through a round aperture

Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;

Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.“

While merely an IPhone photograph, I want this picture to be the kind that people look at 100 or 200 years hence, and say, “Oh how quaint! See the silly way people dressed and transported themselves a century or two ago.” So this raises two questions. First, is whether this is a transitional technology. Second, whether it is soon to be replaced by something better.

The first escalator was patented (U.S. Patent #25,076) on August 9, 1859 by Nathan Ames. There is no evidence that this device was ever built. In 1889, Leamon Souder successfully patented the “stairway,” but, again, it was never built. On March 15, 1892, Jesse W. Reno patented the “Endless Conveyor or Elevator.” Shortly after that, George A. Wheeler patented a moving staircase escalator. As for tangible reality, Reno built his first prototype and installed it alongside the Old Iron Pier at Coney Island, New York City in 1896. In 1895, Charles Seeberger who ultimately teamed with the Otis Elevator company began designing moving stair-based escalators similar to those patented by Wheeler in 1892. His first commercial escalator won the first prize at the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle in France. All this means that escalators have been around for at least a century; so are not transitional technologies and are not likely to be replaced soon.

The question of what next is an interesting one. I do not hold my breath for transporter beams, as anyone who has had a call drop on their cell phone should agree. Star Trek’s Dr. Bones McCoy, on the transporter: I signed on this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by this gadget.” It was never quite clear what the writers of Star Trek wanted the transporter to be. However, there are certain issues of reality and the quantum mechanical paradox that you might not become who you are. It gives one pause. And while Star Trek writers tell us that this problem is fixed by “Heisenberg Compensators,” one’s gotta wonder.

So what is next? By definition we do not know. But at a future date, when we are nothing more than electrons captured in an array that defines an image, those who look at us will know and they will nod knowingly at our dogmatic quaintness.

Shadow of ourselves

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Figure 1 - Cat shadow by Velarius Geng and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Figure 1 – Cat shadow by Velarius Geng and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The other night my cat jumped up in bed. After a while, it surprised me that she had not settled down’ so I looked to see what she was up to. She was warily watching her shadow cast by the nightlight onto the ceiling.  It was a giant threatening feline. Most pet-lovers have been amused by their puppy or kitten’s first encounter with a mirror. Why won’t it play with me. My cat Cloe’ likes to dig at her reflection on the shiny tile hearth. We call it ‘Eolc.” But all of this made me wonder about how people reacted to the first photographs – or more profoundly what it meant to them to be photographed.

It seems a curious point that when we look at an old picture, we see it as a captured moment a conversation, if you will, with the past. But the point is, in fact, that in reality they are gone; the photograph remains. So the photograph may be only a shadow of self, but it is the photograph that denies corruption.The creepiest of nineteenth century photographic images are the postmortem mementos, usually of dead children in their parents arms or clutching a favorite toy. For those that survived, the photograph again was all that remained, if not alive, then at least tangible.

And, of course, the photograph was magical. Yes, these were people who like us were enamored of technology. They understood, or at least nodded to, scientific explanations of the photographic process. But they remained in awe – and really we should always be in awe of scientific discovery. It is the quintessential ingredient of humanness.

Before photography there was drawing, but an artist was doing the drawing. In contrast, photography seemed more like Moses commanding the Red Sea to part. The photographer commanded light to paint. It was Fox Talbot’s “Pencil of Nature.” It was as if a piece of your essence emanated from your self and was captured in silver.  So everyone wanted a piece of this magic.

What I find myself wondering is whether this magical element is truly the distinction, the great divide, between film and digital photography. We have become so enured to technology that we no longer see it as magical.  There are too many high technology steps between concept and creation for there to be much magic left. And, of course, the the tangibility is gone. With analogue photography, An image lies embedded in the emulsion. It is there for all to see. Where is the tangibility of a digital image? More often than not it is never printed out. Its whole existence consists of captured electrons and frozen magnetic dipoles. It is states. It can be erased forever in and instant.

Cloe’ yawns at all the fuss.

“I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.”
Robert Louis Stevenson – My Shadow

Caroline (Carrie) Rand Sterling – More mysteries of the Belle Époque

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Figure 1 - Portrait of Carrie Sterling by Otto Sarony, c 1898.

Figure 1 – Portrait of Carrie Sterling by Otto Sarony, c 1898.

I’d like to return to one of my “Favorite Photographs” postings of 2014, Arnold Genthe’s stunning photograph of  Nora May French, 1907. And as a reminder of the story behind French’s soulful eyes – Nora May French (1881-1907) had a “pilgrim soul.” She was a bohemian poet in Carmel-by-the Sea circles, the circles of Jack (1876-1916)and Charmian (1871-1955) London.  Nora was trapped in the ambiguity of the bohemian lifestyle for a young woman of her day, tormented by social pressure to accept a conventional marriage.  On November 11, 1907 while staying with friends, Carrie and George Sterling, in Carmel, Nora attempted suicide with a handgun.  But as a result of her trembling hand, she missed her mark only shooting off a lock of her hair.  But during the night of November 13-14 she killed herself by ingesting cyanide.  As a tribute, her friends collaborated in having a memorial collection of French’s poems published in 1910, which was republished in 2009.

The photograph, I think, is a masterful and touching piece of work. It is a tribute to Genthe’s skill as a portraitist – even without “Buzzer the Cat.” I think that we can learn a lot from the great portraitists of the time, a lot about composition, posing, and, of course, lighting. And one of the points that I have been learning is that there were so many wonderful practitioners of the art during the Belle Époque. Photography had come into its own, materials were better, or at least, easier. And while Eastman’s magnificent inventions was making it simple to create your own mediocrities, there was still a purpose to fine photography studios. I am being a bit unfair, needless-to-say. There were plenty of mediocre portrait studios and plenty of talented amateurs around.

And this is the very point. Often who is remembered and who is forgotten is a matter of serendipity. As regular readers of this blog will recognize, I have become intrigued by the careers of New York Portrait artists Napoleon and Otto Sarony. The distinction gets very fuzzy. In the later years of Napoleon’s life, his son Otto presided over almost every photograph produced by Sarony Studios. Also, in later years Otto Sarony sold the rights to his name, so that he could take up other pursuits, such as yachting.

I would like today to offer up (Figure 1) the portrait of Caroline (Carrie) Rand Sterling (1880-1918) likely taken by and signed in the lower right by Otto Sarony. What is the date? Judging from her face, one would think Carrie, born in 1880, to be 18 to 20 years old. We know from the Sarony Chronology that the firm moved to 256 Fifth Avenue in 1885. And we know that Otto died in 1903. So I think that we can reasonably place the portrait as 1898 to 1903 – truly fin-de-siècle. I think this every bit as charming and wonderful a portrait as Genthe’s portrait of Nora French. Both were clearly meant to adore and flatter their subjects. Both have a wonderful sense of light.

Fortunately, Sarony’s portraits, especially those of lesser known figures, sell very modestly, and I recently purchased this photograph on Ebay. I have “touched it up,” which means that I have removed hypo spots, reticulations, and other flaws. I have not changed either the basic tonal range or coloration. I have left that to Otto’s craftsmen and time.

As I’ve already indicated, there is a connection between Carrie Sterling and Nora May French. Carrie was the wife of the West Coast poet George Sterling (1869-1926). For West Coast readers, I should point out that there is a little park dedicated to George Sterling in San Francisco at the corner of Hyde and Greenwich Streets, atop Russian Hill. It was originally named George Sterling Glade in 1928. Its single bench broke in the 1960’s, and its plaque was stolen in the 1970’s. Fortunately it was rededicated in 2005 as “Sterling Park.”

Carrie and George Sterling, like Nora May French were close members of Jack London’s bohemian circle, along also with the great fantasy writer Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)- shades of the Cthulhu mythos. There are several images of them at Carmel By the Sea – really snapshots of friends having a good time sailing or at the beach.

We are told that they lived a very unconventional, even debaucherous, life style. As discussed, it was in fact, while boarding with the Sterlings that Nora first attempted to shoot herself and finally committed suicide on November 13, 1907, by ingesting cyanide, purchased from a local pharmacist under the pretext that she needed it to clean silver.  Jack London himself died from a morphine overdose on November 22, 1916, and there is still controversy as to whether this too was suicide or the result of kidney disease.

The story of Ambrose Bierce is a curious one. In October of  1913, the 71 year old Bierce, departed Washington, D.C. to tour the Civil War battlefields of his youth. He is known to have crossed into Mexico and joined Pancho Villa’s army as an observer. His last known communication with the world was a letter he wrote on December 26, 1913. It contained the perhaps strange closing statement that “As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination.” From there Ambrose Bierce disappeared to the world – one of the great literary mysteries of all time.

But returning to Carrie, Carrie divorced George Sterling in 1914, after which she lived in Piedmont, California, her sister Lila Havens having found her a job as curator at the Piedmont Art Gallery, which contained Lila’s husband’s private art collection. It is said, that she and George Sterling regretted their separation and divorce. On November 17, 1918 in her Piedmont bedroom Carrie put on an elegant gown, put Chopin’s “Funeral March” on the Victrola, and drank a vial of cyanide.

Eight years later to the day, in the early morning hours of November 17, 1926, a despondent George Sterling locked himself in his room at the Bohemian Club and he too died by drinking potassium cyanide. French, London, Carrie, and George all died in November. When George’s body was found in his room, there were also found scraps of burned and discarded poetry. Two of which read:

“Deeper into the darkness can I peer

Than most, yet find the darkness still beyond.”

***

“I walk with phantoms that ye know not of.”

We have spoken a lot on these pages of how photography “captures moments” of the past. Carrie Sterling looks out at us through time. “Such a pretty face, such a beautiful photograph,” we may say. And here the answer echos back. There was flesh and blood, passion and torment. These were complex people, who led complicated lives.

I look now at Carrie’s portrait much more sympathetically. And I am reminded of a stone bench given by Andrew Dickson White, co-founder and first president of Cornell University, and his wife to the University. It is contemporary with Otto Sarony’s Portrait of Carrie and carries what may well be a message to those of us that imagine the lives of people in old photographs. It reads simply:

“To those who shall sit here rejoicing,

To those who shall sit here mourning,

Sympathy and greeting;

So have we done in our time.

1892 A.D.W.–H.M.W.”

Philae found

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Figure 1 - Philae found. credit European Space Agency 2016.

Figure 1 – Philae found. credit European Space Agency 2016.

Two years ago I posted about the rendezvous of comet chaser Rosetta with Comet 67-P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It was a wonderful achievement for the European Space Agency. Two months later on November 12, 2014, Rosetta launched a probe, named Philae, to land on the comet. Communication with Philae proved very difficult and it has been essentially “lost.”. According to Cecilia Tubiana of the Space Agency’s OSIRIS camera team, on Monday, “With only a month left of the Rosetta mission, we are so happy to have finally imaged Philae, and to see it in such amazing detail.”

This kind of image, which after all is of a piece of discarded space-junk, falls into the category of the well-known question, “if a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to see, does it really happen?” The profundity of the issue comes from the fact that even if we include all of the alien extant species that have developed a photography, there are only a finite number of cameras in the universe, but at any moment, there are an infinite number of scenes to photograph.

Well, you could argue that last point. Arguably there are only a finite number of subjects as well – a very large finite number. But the point remains. Somewhere on an unknown planet right now a chilling gust of methane picks up and scars the scenery. But there is no one to see it. And the question of its significance dependence upon whether you take a classical mechanical deterministic view, where at some level everything depends causally on what preceded it, or a quantum mechanical view where there is ultimately chance and probability at work.

But what of a piece of space-junk that now will go unnoticed in its journey through the solar system for millions of years? I remember when men first landed on the moon, thinking that someday other men, tourists in fact, would return to that site and take its picture.  The significance of space-junk lies not in the junk itself but in the hearts and minds of those who built it and those who guided it there. If some day it is encountered and photographed again the significance will be in the transcendence of space and time that takes those who see it and who see the photograph back to those hearts and minds. The whole point of photograph is ultimately one of inter human (?) communication and of extending ourselves beyond ourselves.

David’s marvelous retro adventure – odorless media

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Figure 1 - Photographic media: (Top) Kodak TX 35 mm film, (Bottom left) 4 Gb Kingston flash drive for Canon 300D, (bottom right) 16 Gb flash memory for Canon T2i.

Figure 1 – Photographic media: (Top) Kodak TX 35 mm film, (Bottom left) 4 Gb Kingston flash drive for Canon 300D, (bottom right) 16 Gb flash memory for Canon T2i.

I want to point out a seldom realized deficiency about digital photography. It has no smell! And smell is key to human remembrance. Film photography has smells. There are fragrances associated with film. There are fragrances associated with development and printing. Most strong is the acetic acid smell of stop bath. So remember that when you look at Figure 1, which shows my newly minted box of Kodak Trix Film and the flash memory cards for my Canon 300D and T2i. Only the first has an associated odor.

When I first got my Canon 300D I had the option of purchasing a MEMS Hard Disk ( a little tinnie tiny mechanical device) instead of a flash memory card, and I was so taken by the reality of this that I just couldn’t resist. I was so taken by the marvel of technology that I succumbed to geek temptation. My enthusiasm waned at my son’s college graduation when the mechanical components overheated in the intense heat and humidity, and I spent hours coaxing the files off the disk.

In any event, so it is August 31, 2016 and we say that film will soon become totally obsolete and unavailable – so sorry friends of film. But what about the other media in the Figure? When I first started as a scientist we had punch cards (stop laughing people), then paper tape, then magnetic tape, then eight inch floppies, then five inch floppies, then those lightening fast and wonderful zip disks, then optical memory disks, then CDs …   And note that today a lot of computers come sans disk drive. It’s all in “The Cloud.” Now that’s reassuring for sure!

The only consistent theme here is obsolescence. Technology meets and then creates demand. But most of all technology creates obsolescence. So in all probability when you dust off and examine your modern DSLR fifty years hence. You will be perplexed how to proceed. In all probability there won’t be batteries and there won’t be media. In embracing the whirlwind technological climb of the singularity, photography has abandoned its permanence. There will only be the smell of dust.

David’s marvelous retro adventure – batteries

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Figure 1 - Camera batteries, (Left) photocell for Leica M3 meter, (Center) custom battery for Canon 300D, (Right) custom battery for Canon T2i.

Figure 1 – Camera batteries, (Left) photocell for Leica M3 meter, (Center) custom battery for Canon 300D, (Right) custom battery for Canon T2i.

Over the course of the year, I come across my old Leica M3 several times. This is a famous and legendary camera. I get nostalgic, a tear might even come to my eye,  and I remember its wonder and easy of use, as well as what I remember as its “spot on” sharp images. So I have set myself on a nostalgic and marvelous retro adventure to use it once more and to take some photographs with it. So to share the adventure.

Let me begin by saying that this is not a war between film and digital photography. While some refuse to believe it, that war is already won and the victory of digital was inevitable. It was preordained. At some point digital photography was going to cross the magical 11 M pixel limit, and the downward slope of film-based cameras would begin.

However, I am taking this as an opportunity to reflect on the many different aspects of the comparison, and there are several surprises. We can begin with the very fact of my ability to make the comparison. I bought my camera used, and it was already kissing antiqueness. It was built in 1963. that is 53 years ago. 53 years from now neither of my Canon DSLRs will be usable. And the key to their obsolescence is shown in Figure 1. The first thing that I had to do to resurrect my M3 was buy batteries for the light meter. I bought mine from B&H Photovideo but could just as well have gone to my local pharmacy. It is that little disk in Figure 1 which may be compared to the batteries from my Canon EOS 300D and my Canon T2i. These are custom designed batteries with custom design chargers, The charging for one doesn’t even charge the batteries of the other. Clever marketing! Right? Wanna bet how likely it is that you will be able to buy a replacement in 2069? Not! And no matter how good modern batteries are compared to those of a generation ago, you can pretty much count on the fact that they will be gone with the wind long before the mid-twenty first century. That is unlike the Volkswagen in Woody Allen’s movie “Sleeper.”

Hmm, and while we are on the subject there is also the issue of replacement electronic circuit cards in modern cameras. This issue first came up for me with microscopes. You can still use a fifty year-old microscope. It’s probably not optically as good, especially for modes like fluorescence. But buy a new one with all its fancy electronics and you are buying something with marvelous performance and not so marvelous built in obsolescence. When an electronic part fails, the process nowadays is to swap out the board. Long gone are the days when there are people, who can fix a circuit for you. The very concept of board level electronics is not. And you are very lucky if any manufacturer stocks boards for longer than ten years.

Now I cannot promise you that in fifty-three years that little disk photocell will still be available. Only Kodak promised that film in all formats would always be produced. Kodak? But the Leica M3, a marvel of mechanical and optical technology, will still take photographs without the built in meter. Well, that is as long as 35 mm film remains available.

Miss Olive Lewis of Pepperell, Massachusetts

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Figure 1 – Miss Olive Lewis of Pepperell, Massachusetts, photograph taken at the Wilson Studios in Brockton, MA in 1916-17.

Figure 1 – Miss Olive Lewis of Pepperell, Massachusetts, photograph taken at the Wilson Studios in Brockton, MA in 1916-17.

This past Saturday I found myself poking around a couple of antique shops in Concord, Massachusetts. I like to dig around old photography items especially sorting through the stacks of second rate photographs or tin-types labeled as daguerreotypes. I was attracted to the inexpensive portrait of Figure 1, a silver gelatin print, which was taken in 1916-17 at the Wilson Studios in Brockton, Massachusetts. It is a portrait of a pretty young lady in a white summer dress named Olive Lewis of Pepperell, Massachusets and it contains a faint but elegant inscription that I believe reads to “Persis with love, Olive.”

I think that the photograph is a fine example of the quality of portraiture at the time. I find both the combination of the delicate soft focus, the pretty smile of the subject, and the gorgeously executed side illumination stunning – a far cry from the myriad of boring portraits that one usually comes across.

There is an advertisement that I found on the web for the sale of Wilson’s Studio in Abel’s Photographic Weekly from 1920. This because of the death of the proprietor. The studio was at 68 Main Street in Brockton, a city of 75,000, at the time and had been in continuous operation fro forty years; so 1880 – 1920. The back of the photograph bears in addition to the subjects name and place of residence, the name Howard Lemmary(?), who may have been the photographer. Finally if you look into the Lewis genealogical records of Pepperell, Massachusetts you find that Persis was a Lewis family name; so it all seems to fit together.

I have spoken before about the nameless faces with forgotten stories that, captured in silver, stare, or in this case, smile back at us. Here with a little electronic research, part of the veil of obscurity is cast away. Still we know so little of Olive’s story. It is part of the photographer’s skill and art that it matters to us. And it would have astounded Miss Lewis to learn that a century later her portrait would be posted on the web.

 

Droning on

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Figure 1 - The image is by Esther Bubley for the Office of War Information and is in the US Library of Congress and in the Public Domain in the United States.

Figure 1 – The image is by Esther Bubley for the Office of War Information and is in the US Library of Congress and in the Public Domain in the United States.

There is an intriguing commentary in this past week’s New York Times by Farhad Manjoo entitled “Think Amazon’s Drone Delivery Idea Is a Gimmick? Think Again” The bottom line is that it’s coming. I have a lot of friends who tell me “that will never happen.” The that being automated drone-based delivery in that magic zone of the first 400 feet of airspace. Well, friends, it’s coming

Even before anyone talked about the “singularity” progress was marching on along four parallel, or at least complementary, paths: the push to transmit information (text), the push to transport voice, the push to transport images, and the push to transport material. All of this as fast as possible. And it is the definition of “as fast possible” that fades forever as the horizon.

Companies like FEDEX and Amazon have their business models set on rapid transport of material, of things. And friends, it’s coming. It’s coming because people want it.

So I am offering up today and image of Miss Helen Ringwald working the pneumatic tube mail delivery system in Washington, DC in 1943. Who woulda thunk it?

Ascendance

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Figure 1 - Ascendance, Jacob's Ladder. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Figure 1 – Ascendance, Jacob’s Ladder. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I took the image of Figure 1 this past Saturday at Highfield Hall in Falmouth, Massachusetts. When photographs get categorized, this one would be called an “Abstract” or an “Interior.” But it is more, and I wish there was a category “Myth” or better “Mythic Allusion.” Because, this image and its kin immediately evoke an allusion within our mythic or spiritual psyche. When I saw the scene, I immediately thought of Moses ascending to heaven, denied entrance to the “promised land.” Moses ascends Jacob’s ladder to God.

But it is much more than Moses. The Sumerian goddess Inanna rises up from the underworld to resurrect the world.  Both Jesus and Mohamed ascend to heaven. They too bring resurrection to mankind, and it is the Christian path to climb Jacob’s ladder to be with God.

Ascent is a central theme in Campbell’s “Hero of a Thousand Faces.” It represents a rebirth, literally passage through a second, and this time spiritual, womb. Even the simple act of entering a cathedral represents ascent to a higher plane. We rise from the plane of mundane everyday life to a higher plane of sublime spirituality.

You can see this sense of rebirth by ladder in Figure 1. The ladder leads through a sort of passageway to “the light.” The windows are brilliant, and you can not quite make out their form. I don’t want to over dramatize. But I believe that this kind of photographic theme is immediate and visceral in what it evokes. It appeals to a common set of stories. And if I may be allowed one more, there is Dante’s story of the “Ascent from Hell” (again the Underworld).

“Lo duca e io per quel cammino ascoso
intrammo a ritornar nel chiaro mondo;
e sanza cura aver d’alcun riposo,

salimmo sù, el primo e io secondo,
tanto ch’i’ vidi de le cose belle
che porta ’l ciel, per un pertugio tondo.

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.”

“The Guide and I into that hidden road
Now entered, to return to the bright world;
And without care of having any rest

We mounted up, he first and I the second,
Till I beheld through a round aperture
Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;

Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.”

Dante Alighieri

La Divina Commedia – Inferno

Canto XXXIV