Another previously unknown street photographer surfaces, Frank Oscar Larson from NYC

Loren Sattler · Jan 31, 2012

Saw this link on another web site about a recent discovery of a New York City street photographer from 1950's: http://gothamist.com/2012/01/27/1950s_new_york_street_stories.php#photo-1

dpurdy · Jan 31, 2012

Another Rolleiflex user..

clayne · Feb 1, 2012

'They're in possession of "several thousand historic negatives hidden from sight for 55 years,"'

55 years!

What storage format could I choose *right now* that would be readable 55 years from now with just simple common sense storage?

That's right: silver gelatin.

Jeff Kubach · Feb 1, 2012

I enjoy those pictures. As mention before another Rolleiflex user!

Jeff

Louis Nargi · Feb 1, 2012

Enjoyed the pictures. I don't live to far only an hour or so planing to see the show.

Wayne · Feb 1, 2012

These are interesting snapshots of a point in time, but they don't strike me with the same feeling of greatness like some other recently discovered street photographs. Interesting nonetheless, thanks for posting it.

batwister · Feb 3, 2012

These 'newly discovered' photographers can only get worse, as everyone starts digging around their attics. Does it always have to be a great American city in the fifties or can boring British towns in the fifties also fit the bill?

ParkerSmithPhoto · Feb 3, 2012

clayne said:
What storage format could I choose *right now* that would be readable 55 years from now with just simple common sense storage? That's right: silver gelatin.

Great point. Keep them dry and you're good to go.

Digital asset management is one of the biggest hidden costs of digital photography. Not only in hardware, but in TIME. One of my time saving goals for the year is to get another studio assistant who can sit there and take care of all that time wasting work. People think the darkroom is tedious - jeez, sitting at the computer, retouching, managing files, uploading to the lab, now that's tedious.

It's amazing how quickly you can put your hands on a negative, even in the absence of a formal filing system. Open up a binder, flip a few pages and there it is!

CGW · Feb 3, 2012

Thinking the Vivian Maier works made a whole lot bigger impression.

Grainy · Feb 3, 2012

Okay pictures, but not spectacular. However I liked the poster in one of the shots "4 poses, 25 cents"

Loren Sattler · Feb 3, 2012

Batwister, bring on that "boring British town", and we will take a look!

zsas · Feb 4, 2012

These are wonderful. That photograph of the sailors getting photographed is really interesting. Thanks for the share!

Batwister, I sure hope more and more of these closet photographers get discovered, would love to see a Brit

Kav · Feb 4, 2012

batwister said:
These 'newly discovered' photographers can only get worse, as everyone starts digging around their attics. Does it always have to be a great American city in the fifties or can boring British towns in the fifties also fit the bill?

No it doesn't, but what's stopping you from walking around where you live documenting life with photography?

lesm · Feb 4, 2012

Batwister, will this whet your appetite?:
"The extraordinary story recounted in this book opens at a market junk stall in Yorkshire with the discovery, quite by chance, of a family collection of several hundred Victorian and Edwardian [glass] photographic negatives." That's the introduction on the dust jacket of a book I picked up in a secondhand bookshop a year or two ago. It's titled "A Richer Dust, Echoes from an Edwardian Album" by Colin Gordon, who found the boxes of negs in 1975, cobbled together some kit to print them and did a heap of research into the family and the photographer. It's a fascinating read, published in 1978 by Book Club Associates. You might be able to track it down through your local library. I see there's a copy for sale at AbeBooks.co.uk. Google throws up more.

matthew001 · Feb 7, 2012

The photographs are interesting for what they are. I do not think they are necessarily museum quality work.

clayne · Feb 7, 2012

If I had to choose frames from the original link: 3, 5, and 6.

pbromaghin · Feb 7, 2012

CGW said:
Thinking the Vivian Maier works made a whole lot bigger impression.

Right. Her pics were a revelation. Her tortured mind produced some extraordinary beauty in patterns of light and dark. Now everyone's digging in their uncle's attic.

Wayne · Feb 7, 2012

pbromaghin said:
Right. Her pics were a revelation. Her tortured mind <snip!>

Please explain. Do you mind read the dead?

himself · Feb 7, 2012

other than a sense of oooh-look-at-their-funny-clothes I really don't see these making much of an impact.
that being said, I'm sure they are keeping the best for the show, right? right?

hmmm, I wonder if those 6 negs I found in an abandoned horse-racing track in Vienna will be worth anything...

pbromaghin · Feb 7, 2012

Wayne said:
Please explain. Do you mind read the dead?

Thank you, tortured was a poor choice of word and beyond what I really meant. From the bio info people have been able to gather and from statements of people who knew her, she was quite eccentric, a loner who seemed to retreat further into herself in her later years. Far from being Teddy Kaczynski, but I could see neighborhood kids calling her the crazy woman who lives down the street.

Wayne · Feb 7, 2012

himself said:
other than a sense of oooh-look-at-their-funny-clothes I really don't see these making much of an impact.
that being said, I'm sure they are keeping the best for the show, right? right?

hmmm, I wonder if those 6 negs I found in an abandoned horse-racing track in Vienna will be worth anything...

Burn 5 of them and you'll be sitting on a gold mine...

Wayne · Feb 7, 2012

pbromaghin said:
Thank you, tortured was a poor choice of word and beyond what I really meant. From the bio info people have been able to gather and from statements of people who knew her, she was quite eccentric, a loner who seemed to retreat further into herself in her later years. Far from being Teddy Kaczynski, but I could see neighborhood kids calling her the crazy woman who lives down the street.

I'll accept eccentric, since that is clearly an opinion based on external observations.

himself · Feb 7, 2012

Wayne said:
Burn 5 of them and you'll be sitting on a gold mine...

Another previously unknown street photographer surfaces, Frank Oscar Larson from NYC

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