your life: bio as photojournalism.

jtk · Mar 10, 2018

Sadly I tossed the suitcase. The old tweed-looking type. It absorbed that rain fast and was already rotten inside, stunk. I scanned almost all of these photos a decade ago..Epson 3200 and betterscanning.com holders..not nearly good enough for 35mm, certainly (by test Vs Durst enlarger and fine Fuji lens) good enough for 6X7 to 16X20. The scans were backed up into chaos disorganization here and there, reorganized and edited for dupes last month, that reorg backed up on a dedicated hard disk as well as thumb drive. Now I need to deal with identity titles etc....and I need to study and reorg etc the Russkie stuff.

More Le-Carre: The single most modern Russian/Harbin prints subject is a solo Russian cutie-pie-nurse, shot in front of a hospital in San Francisco. Somebody made it to America. That may have involved the little-known historic release of certain USSR citizens from somewhere in China (e.g. Harbin) to Austraila. I have two books by an Austrailian govt agent who knows her family left Harbin...she went back to Soviet Union when Glassnost allowed files to be viewed, found record of her murdered ancestor in Lubyanka NKVD prison/torture/murder archives (Gorky).

Loaded question is this: how are these photos any less mine than are someone else's photos of unknown, mildly interesting nobodies on some street in NYC? Or...aren't they MORE the work of an individual...me...than wannabe-Ansel photos are?

Did you save your watercolor Xerox work? Sounds like that was your own, personal, photography.

removed account4 · Mar 10, 2018

oh well suitcases + the story of human kind i think is
riddled with the same story, different time period, different names and faces.
its really sad how humans are such a drag .. and kind of mindblowing we've lasted 35-40,000 years
i mean the iceman's remains have been examined by forensic archaeologists &c and he was murdered ..
( as they say ... i watched the reenactment on the history channel )
the le carre stuff is pretty mind blowing. i gotta tell you,
i wear a wig and groucho marx glasses most of the time since
my toaster oven is a video camera and my computer, well, thanfully its from 1981
the only images they are gonna get of me are going to be alpha numeric ....
yep, i 3 copies of the structure report, gave one to a CRM firm
who did a survey of the area during an interview they mislabled as a job interview
( it was a fishing for information interview ) and 1 copy to the diner owner and one in my "archive"
i have a handful of other tedious research papers i used the same sort of
projection xerography they all had a weird relief watercolor look to them.
sadly the tech has changed and color xeroxes just look like color xeroxes
and when i was making them, well, each 8x11 cost something like $3.50 a wack...
nothing special anymore, and i am guessing the old machines that copy shops
used to have are long gone, and if found on the inter web, a fortune to transport
( and maintaining would be another kettle of fish ) ..
archiving+currating old photography is a great thing i agree !

Ko.Fe. · Mar 11, 2018

jtk said:
Too many words, too much preaching. Sorry you have limited tech. Are you doing a bio-style project or are you not ?

You must be the author of Giant Red Scalp thread. Sorry it looks this way.

eddie · Jun 17, 2018

jtk said:
What personal project are you working on now, how valuable will it to someone in 200 years?

I've been planning on printing small (5x7) family photos I took in my youth, of family. The plan is to make a set each for my niece and nephews. They'll see their parents, aunt, uncles, grandparents in ways they never saw them. They will also get a sense of relatives long gone before their births. For now, I think they'll get a kick out of seeing us all as children. For the future, who knows? The photos could be passed on to their children, and become family heirlooms. That would be good enough. However, if one of their descendants is the person to cure cancer... the first Captain of the Starship Enterprise... the Governor of Mars Colony... the guy that breaks Wayne Gretzky's scoring record... then the photos would have more historic significance in 200 years.

jtk · Jun 17, 2018

eddie said:

I've been planning on printing small (5x7) family photos I took in my youth, of family. The plan is to make a set each for my niece and nephews. They'll see their parents, aunt, uncles, grandparents in ways they never saw them. They will also get a sense of relatives long gone before their births. For now, I think they'll get a kick out of seeing us all as children. For the future, who knows? The photos could be passed on to their children, and become family heirlooms. That would be good enough. However, if one of their descendants is the person to cure cancer... the first Captain of the Starship Enterprise... the Governor of Mars Colony... the guy that breaks Wayne Gretzky's scoring record... then the photos would have more historic significance in 200 years.

Click to expand...

A worthy thing to do. Congratulations to you and your family.

I may not have mentioned that I printed albums (identical sets) of selected images and distributed to family members. The thumb drive versions will be far richer in pictures and notes than the printed albums (which are very fine and archival), and all of that will be posted to a yet-undetermined cloud.

We (photographers, artists, writers etc) often think we're achieving some sort of immortality with our work. If we imagine "archival" is important for our prints, think how much closer our FAMILY is to immortality if we print and distribute sets to all of them, including access to cloud along with easier-to-access thumb drives !

WilmarcoImaging · Jun 23, 2018

Wrapping up a project from an Annie Leibovitz Masterclass assignment, to photograph my Dad while he showed me and explained photographs of himself.

It was fun to plan and shoot. It is not my typical genre, and it moved me forward in some way.

jtk · Jun 25, 2018

WilmarcoImaging said:
Wrapping up a project from an Annie Leibovitz Masterclass assignment, to photograph my Dad while he showed me and explained photographs of himself.

It was fun to plan and shoot. It is not my typical genre, and it moved me forward in some way.

Would be interesting to read your thoughts (including motivation for) that Annie Leibovitz Masterclass.

I remember her buzzing around the San Francisco State College campus, toting a Nikkormat. Like many young women in that environment, she was very highly motivated and/but her connection with Jann Wenner at the very beginning of Rolling Stone seems to have supercharged that motivation.

ReginaldSMith · Jun 25, 2018

I don't feel any motivation to have someone 200 years from now look at my photographs with any interest. I use photography as learning tool, just as I use reading and writing. Taking photographs is another way for me to (try to) understand the world around me. Ergo, my ongoing project is learning from photographs. Not so much in the documentary sense - "Oh, that's a '57 Bel Aire." But, more in the socio-political sense - "What's the meaning of this landscape we are in?" I don't take any intentional steps to archive anything beyond my own life. I'd be just as happy for all my photographs to turn back into starlight with me.

slackercrurster · Jun 25, 2018

OP...too many projects to list here...hundreds! Archive has tens of thousands of photos and ephemera that needs scans. From ancient dags and tintypes all the way to the 1970's. I'm also trying to scan hundreds of 16mm movie reels before they turn into salad dressing. Plus my own photography that is horribly backlogged.

If you are not familiar with vinegar syndrome and how it affect acetate film, check this out. Our movie heritage is decomposing before our eyes.

https://www.123rf.com/photo_24899401_absolutely-film-base-destruction-by-vinegar-syndrome.html

slackercrurster · Jun 25, 2018

ReginaldSMith said:
I don't feel any motivation to have someone 200 years from now look at my photographs with any interest. I use photography as learning tool, just as I use reading and writing. Taking photographs is another way for me to (try to) understand the world around me. Ergo, my ongoing project is learning from photographs. Not so much in the documentary sense - "Oh, that's a '57 Bel Aire." But, more in the socio-political sense - "What's the meaning of this landscape we are in?" I don't take any intentional steps to archive anything beyond my own life. I'd be just as happy for all my photographs to turn back into starlight with me.

Sure, that is how most artists do it. They use their art to make sense of the world. Only difference is the archivist also works to keep their history alive after they are dead.

slackercrurster · Jun 25, 2018

Colin Corneau said:
I'm a big believer in personal projects. They can be self-promotion materials for the commercial shooter, they can be very useful therapy for an artist on a personal level, and they can help any photographer regain their spark during a period of the doldrums.

I'm not as concerned with a personal history or the notion of family as it sounds like you are...but I have about a decade worth of street photography from my former small town of residence. Originally it was a way to get used to shooting film again after a long absence, then it became a fun habit and then after that it became a way to try to make sense of where I was living at a time I didn't see much hope for the future there. Like your project, it was and is important to me.

I'm just trying to wade my way through all this, but it does seem like two points apply for both of us:
• try to make this relevant to others. How can they see themselves (or what's important to them) in your work?
• have as clear an idea as possible WHY you're doing this. What's your motivation, what's your goal, how do you define this work? In other words, could you explain this idea to a third-grader child and get it across? (I think Einstein once set that parameter down as a way to tell if you've simplified it enough to persuade others).

Yes, I keep my inkjet printers heads unclogged by running postcards every month or so. I used to print printing charts, but figured I'd do something useful instead of trashing the prints. I send out about 450 to 600 cards per year, but am scaling back a little.

slackercrurster · Jun 25, 2018

Colin Corneau said:
I really don't think digital media will be very archival at all, even leaving aside how quickly the playback hardware goes obsolete.

I recall hearing an interview with Edward Burtynsky (can't recall the program but pretty sure it was on the CBC) talking about his idea for the "Ten Thousand Year Photograph"...a thought exercise about how he would create a photograph that would last for eons.
I'd suggest that a properly processed print, with text typed upon acid-free paper, will last for centuries (if properly stored).

Pigment inkjet prints are very archival. They may fade about 5% or less with a year in the sun, but for dark storage they are very permanent. Of course, a silver BW print is better. But a pigment color inkjet print is better than a wet color print for dye stability. (Although Fuji's Crystal Archive is excellent for dye stability and rivals lower end pigment inkjet prints for dye stability.)

We still have dye transfer prints that look great, but they were stored in the dark. Dye transfer prints are one of the worst light fast prints out here. Only surpassed for fading by dye based inkjet prints. (Note: I have not tested all dye inkjets, so statement is limited to my experience.)

Anyway, they have the M disc that is carved in stone so to speak. But it is hard to get the right drives for it, so who knows what will happen in 10 or 20 years when you want to read one.

ReginaldSMith · Jun 25, 2018

I would think the biggest threat to archived materials is simple careless loss, theft, and damage by fire, floods, and other disasters. Suppose you had a gold standard print or digital asset. Unless you also can afford redundant cold storage facilities, you have plenty of ways of losing it. And worse yet, unless you endow some entity to pay for and maintain all that cold storage after you depart the earth, it's not really archival.

Something I noticed years ago when touring some world class museums is that they are already stuffed to the gills with the art detritus of the last few thousand years. So, adding much more from the millions of contemporary artists will require a massive amount of "composting" of the old stuff, and I sure haven't heard of much of that.

Unless I am mistaken, the physical quantities and dimensions of all the "artifacts" are growing geometrically over time. That growth is far outstripping the growth in wealth and infrastructure needed to store it, let alone curate it. So, as a practical matter, archiving might be utterly pointless. Random destructive forces and time will be the most likely curators of today's artifacts.

jtk · Jun 25, 2018

It's not important for everyone's photos to survive. I hope and believe that in following generations the images I've distributed as sets to my family and future family some will be interested in where they have come from...and most will find their own personal identies in that context.

I've mentioned this Navajo idea before, and I agree with it: If we can't tell folks where our generations have come from, we cease to be part of our own lineage...we cease to be human beings, becoming merest ghosts or solopsists. I think that's the unfortunate condition of most photographers today.

Those Navajo people have no problem with archives...they're intelligent and they practice memory. For us the archive question is a lot easier thanks to digital storage, which can be replicated in any number of alternative systems. If our images don't survive, it's our fault.

faberryman · Jun 25, 2018

jtk said:
If we can't tell folks where our generations have come from, we cease to be part of our own lineage...we cease to be human beings, becoming merest ghosts or solopsists. I think that's the unfortunate condition of most photographers today.

Just because I don't have a subscription to ancestry.com does make me any less a human being.

Alan Edward Klein · Jun 25, 2018

jtk said:
It's not important for everyone's photos to survive. I hope and believe that in following generations the images I've distributed as sets to my family and future family some will be interested in where they have come from...and most will find their own personal identies in that context.

I've mentioned this Navajo idea before, and I agree with it: If we can't tell folks where our generations have come from, we cease to be part of our own lineage...we cease to be human beings, becoming merest ghosts or solopsists. I think that's the unfortunate condition of most photographers today.
...

My grandparents immigrated to the US around 1900 from towns in Russia and Poland that don't exist anymore. It's impossible to go back; there are no records of my ancestors before then. There are millions of people who are in the same situation. How do blacks go back to before they were slaves to Africa? To say we cease to be human beings is ego and self-centered. Every human is valuable. God doesn't make junk.

jtk · Jun 25, 2018

Alan Edward Klein said:
My grandparents immigrated to the US around 1900 from towns in Russia and Poland that don't exist anymore. It's impossible to go back; there are no records of my ancestors before then. There are millions of people who are in the same situation. How do blacks go back to before they were slaves to Africa? To say we cease to be human beings is ego and self-centered. Every human is valuable. God doesn't make junk.

Memory of ancestry is a blessing that can sadly be lost or destroyed. I'm an existentialist and for me my generations are treasures and fragile responsibility. I've had this discussion with many Jews who mourn their generations of losses at the hands of famous European junk. I've also had this conversation with Navajo people and near illiterate Hispanic people who remember five or six generations back, value that blessing...having preserved it against all odds and God's sometimes
mixed messages.

faberryman · Jun 25, 2018

jtk said:
Memory of ancestry is a blessing that can sadly be lost or destroyed. I'm an existentialist and for me my generations are treasures and fragile responsibility. I've had this discussion with many Jews who mourn their generations of losses at the hands of famous European junk. I've also had this conversation with Navajo people and near illiterate Hispanic people who remember five or six generations back, value that blessing...having preserved it against all odds and God's sometimes
mixed messages.

Existentialism as a philosophy does not place a value on ones ancestors, much less any responsibility for their memory. That's just you making stuff up. You are of course free to believe that memory of you ancestors is a blessing.

jtk · Jun 25, 2018

faberryman said:
Existentialism as a philosophy does not place a value on ones ancestors, much less any responsibility for their memory. That's just you making stuff up. You are of course free to believe that memory of you ancestors is a blessing.

Gee, thanks. It's nice to have somebody here to tell the grownups what everything is all about.

jtk · Jun 25, 2018

Alan Edward Klein said:
My grandparents immigrated to the US around 1900 from towns in Russia and Poland that don't exist anymore. It's impossible to go back; there are no records of my ancestors before then. There are millions of people who are in the same situation. How do blacks go back to before they were slaves to Africa? To say we cease to be human beings is ego and self-centered. Every human is valuable. God doesn't make junk.

It might be remembered that many of us are actually photographers, with family histories of photography. Mine go back to the 19th century in pioneer California, just before my girlfriend's Ukrainian Jewish family came to Brooklyn, ...their photos hang in our home. Those old Jews lost nobody directly to the trash but the trash did destroy the family history in Ukraine when the trash wiped out their offspring. My family came to California in 1846 but I don't have negatives earlier than the 1880s.

Photography actually does let some of us "go back." That's central to the very nature of photography. Many of us are aware of that aspect of photography and are moved and perhaps motivated by it. Others ...

WilmarcoImaging · Jun 26, 2018

jtk said:
Would be interesting to read your thoughts (including motivation for) that Annie Leibovitz Masterclass.

I remember her buzzing around the San Francisco State College campus, toting a Nikkormat. Like many young women in that environment, she was very highly motivated and/but her connection with Jann Wenner at the very beginning of Rolling Stone seems to have supercharged that motivation.

Thoughts: it helped me in two ways - to better relate to a portrait subject, and to do more development into the idea of an image, or series of images. The course was not technical, and not gear-related.

Motivation for taking the course: I wanted to invest in my skills in the form of training. The Masterclass was available, convenient, reasonably priced, and I enjoy Annie's portrait work. The course gave me a list of to-dos, or mini projects, that I am slowly working through.

jtk · Jun 26, 2018

WilmarcoImaging said:
Thoughts: it helped me in two ways - to better relate to a portrait subject, and to do more development into the idea of an image, or series of images. The course was not technical, and not gear-related.

Motivation for taking the course: I wanted to invest in my skills in the form of training. The Masterclass was available, convenient, reasonably priced, and I enjoy Annie's portrait work. The course gave me a list of to-dos, or mini projects, that I am slowly working through.

OK, makes sense. Did Annie's work appeal strongly to you previous?

WilmarcoImaging · Jun 26, 2018

jtk said:
OK, makes sense. Did Annie's work appeal strongly to you previous?

Her work appealed to me before I took the course. The Queen of England and family series is good, as are her portraits of George Clooney, Michael Douglas and others.

jtk · Jun 27, 2018

jtk said:
OK, makes sense. Did Annie's work appeal strongly to you previous?

What are some examples of those "mini-projects" you mentioned?

WilmarcoImaging · Jun 27, 2018

A few examples:

Photograph an older person. Ask him/her if they have photographs of when they were younger.

Make a photograph of a subject in the same place, at 3 different times of day.

Photograph someone with a simple background and at a location that has something to do with the subject.

Several others in the course material and video lectures. It was a good course.

your life: bio as photojournalism.

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