All images in The New Found Photography are from my own private collection. I do not reblog or use any photos from any other source. All photos are either original prints or prints made from negatives in my collection. Remember, you can always click on an image to see it in a larger window.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Grandma Mary
I have, on occasion, written about the difference between copy and original in a medium designed to be endlessly reproducible. Back when I was working full time at a photo lab, one of our customers walked in with a camera original Ansel Adams negative. I have no idea how he got it; purchase, gift, or theft. Nevertheless, it was my job to match the original print, made by Adams, with nothing more than a coffee table book for reference, and if that book was an accurate representation of the Adam's print, I did a pretty good job. So, was it an original print or a copy?
Most art collectors would want a print made by the photographer, or printed under his or her direct supervision. But the fact is, a lot of very good and very famous photographers turn their negatives over to people they don't know for printing. Go to a museum, or it's website, and look at their photography collections. You'll see it over and over again, photo by whoever, 1936, printed in 1983, five years after the photographer's death. So, is it a copy or an original?
Written on the back of this Polaroid, and with out a doubt, copy of an old chromo-lithograph, "Grandmother Mary Keoster."
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