| Newsletter for Collectors - Vol 7.5 | December 1, 2013 | | | Home • What‘s New • Photographers • Online Exhibitions
Contents • Alphabetical • Styles and movements • Articles
Visual Indexes • Galleries & Dealers • Timelines • Techniques
Library • Contact us Welcome to another Luminous-Lint Newsletter.
The quest for an ever finer grain… or… more pixels |
In the last Newsletter back at the end of August (is it that long ago?) I explained the steps that are in process for improving Luminous-Lint. At the top level it looks like the same picture and little appears to have changed. Online exhibitions aren’t being added so the Newsletters are more spasmodic and all has the appearance of tranquility but this is far from the case.
For those of you who are going into the over 1000 Themes within Luminous-Lint they are rapidly improving. The Themes in the website started out about a year and a half ago like undeveloped photographic paper (remember that?), they emerged from the developing tray with far too much grain (or larger pixels) depending on your metaphors. As time rolls by they have a finer and finer grain. So it is with the content on Luminous-Lint.
Each Theme is based upon vast amounts of underlying visual evidence and this is stored in the online exhibitions, visual indexes, books, articles, readings and texts. During the first phase we “Collect” the evidence and place it within each Theme and from that evolving base small fragments come together of text and quotes with the supporting images from thousands of collections around the world.
The fragments, with their supporting footnotes, are shown for each theme and over time order starts to emerge. We are still in an early phase with the grain getting finer all the time.
A specialist in topic will always be able to point out gaps and that is welcome. Your suggestions will improve Luminous-Lint for us all. As expected not all topics progress at the same speed. The gaps don’t matter we just have to be aware of where they are so we can address them later on.
If you’ve been watching a single Theme grow some of them now contain mind-blowing amounts of content with supporting footnotes and references.
Take a look a few themes to get a sense of the work in progress:
The odd world of serendipity |
So how does this happen?
You might assume that there is a carefully planned approach so I work away each day on a specific topic but that is rarely what happens. In the last few days one collector sent through a rare set of early Russian photographs, another a nineteenth century album from India, and another a scan of a label for a print seller in Rome. A discussion on Facebook yesterday examined what “vernacular” means, within another group there was a discussion of Albanian protest books, on a Photohistory list site a recently digitised archive was described. An email arrived a few days ago informing me about a collection of Charles Marville photographs of lampposts whilst in another a collector agreed to having selections from his remarkable collection added to Luminous-Lint.
Each of these is a starting point for me to consider how this fresh information impacts parts of Luminous-Lint. A seemingly small detail such as label for a print seller in Rome will get me thinking about how photographs were distributed and where there is evidence of wet stamps, blind stamps and labels for print sellers in major cities and how this affected the availability of prints to travellers and the resulting creation of personal albums. This will lead to a starting fragment of text with evidence that is placed within one or more Themes.
There is a tremendous pleasure in serendipity and unexpected connections between images occur all the time and are stored ready for the future.
Understanding regional histories |
Luminous-Lint is not concentrating on preparing regional histories yet but as fragments are created they are also placed in the appropriate country coarse grain histories of photography in different countries start to emerge. Take a look at the early phases of some of these…
Crude I appreciate but as you scroll down these pages you’ll see the quantity of visual evidence waiting to be incorporated from online exhibitions and visual indexes is considerable. By products of other pieces of Luminous-Lint on PhotoBooks start to appear. These are certainly not like the works of Martin Parr & Gerry Badger but the raw material is being organised on pages as at:
Photobooks
WANT TO HELP: If you have a history of a country you’d like to share email me at alan@luminous-lint.com
I remember about a year ago somebody referred to Luminous-Lint as a portal to the history of photography. To a certain extent it was a fair comment as every book or article leads to deeper resources through footnotes and references. It does sort of miss the point though about what is already happening – as the Themes progress so the visual evidence improves, supporting texts will provide documentation based upon that evidence and then we can start the analysis and seek out patterns and trends. Everything has to be based upon the same evidence base that is available to us all. So hopefully you will find additional ways to use the material for enjoyment, learning, teaching and research.
Let me know if you require any specific data sets.
The finer grain… or… the need for more pixels |
The biographies of photographers, regional histories, thematic studies all improve the grain of the whole of Luminous-Lint and that will help us all. There are innumerable subjects where there is rich material from thousands of collections.
There is also the pleasure in the unexpected…
Try finding photographs taken and photobooks published in 1936 on Google – good luck with that.
Looking for photographs and photobooks of 1936?
Want to see the kinds of stamps you might find on photographic prints and mounts?
Need examples of fabricated realities in photography?
Compiling a list of the issues of USSR in Construction?
Searching for examples of Propaganda?
These are a few questions from many thousands that can already be answered.
There are thousands of parallel histories of photography that include the well known photographers but also there are also amateur photographers, snapshots, photobooth images, selfies, Afghan street photographers, x-rays and piles of images found in Chinese garbage dumps. There are different ways of cutting through history such as the hefty volume Anne Tucker edited on “War Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and its Aftermath” illustrated (BTW this book is a must for your supersized Christmas stocking if you haven’t already got it).
To continue the grain metaphor (yes I appreciate you have got the idea) – with goodwill we can highlight areas that need further research and provide a foundation to work from and make the grain finer still.
Sharing makes the world a better place |
If you have resources – biographies of photographers, lists of exhibitions, all the plates from Camera Work or anything else that you feel would assist our understanding let me know and I’ll try to work out a way of sharing it for the benefit of all.
Last but far from least.. |
Have a Wonderful Holiday Season and remember your Family and Friends are what matters so sprinkle a few visual delights along with general merriment.
As my wife makes the best Christmas cake around I’m going to be okay.
All the best to you and yours,
Alan
p.s. Thanks to all of you who have shared your knowledge, scans, books and insights to improve Luminous-Lint along the way – it can only happen with your enthusiasm. It is deeply appreciated as always.
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Juan Carlos Alom (1964, 1 December - ) was born - Cuba, Havana. Cuban photojournalist - has been involved since 1989 in photographing art at the Fototeca de Cuba.
Jerry Burchard (1931, 1 December - 2011, 17 May) was born - US, NY, Rochester. American photographer.
Heinz Hajek-Halke (1898, 1 December - 1983) was born - Germany, Berlin. A German press photographer, photo-editor, teacher and master of abstract techniques and montage. In the late 1940's he was a member of the Fotoform group, and later taught photography and graphic design at the Berliner Hochschule für Bildende KüMore…
Robert Glenn Ketchum (1947, 1 December - ) was born - US, CA, Los Angeles. American landscape photography - his images are in the Ansel Adams tradition of large expanses of wilderness. Particular interests include Alaska (The Tongas) , North West Passage, and the Hudson River.
Simon Marsden (1948, 1 December - ) was born - UK, Lincoln.
Wayne Albee (1882 - 1937, 1 December) died - US, CA, San Diego.
Max Alpert (1899, 18 March - 1980, 1 December) died - USSR, Moscow. Soviet photojournalist - war photographer during the Second World War.
Anton Hautmann (1821, 20 June - 1862, 1 December) died - Italy, Florence. German sculptor and photographer in Italy.
Tibor Honty (1907, 9 May - 1968, 1 December) died - Czechoslovakia, Prague.
Julia Marshall (1896 - 1994, 1 December) died - US, MN, Duluth. |
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