500,000

 

 Sometime in the last couple of days, The New Found Photography went over 500,000 individual page views.  I have no idea if that's impressive or not, but just to mark the milestone, a repeat from my very first post. 

2500

 

This is my 2500th post. As I've written before, I didn't start The New Found Photography because I was desperate to share my old photo collection with the world but because I couldn't figure out any other way to be able to see it myself without having to root around in dozens of unorganized boxes. So, this is from my very first post from 2009. I picked up some glass negatives at a small antique store in Washington state and hand-printed them myself. It's the dream of every photo collector to find a complete set of photos from an undiscovered talent. Think Vivian Mier. The antique dealer who sold me these negatives had purchased a collection of negs from an estate in Montana and judging by the quality of the few I purchased, perhaps he had run across an important photographer, but sadly decided to break-up the collection and sell them for $5.00 each. 

200,000

Sometime during the wee hours of this morning, The New Found Photography went over 200,000 unique page views.  These three photographs started things off.  I found the original glass negatives at an antique store in Washington state.  The seller had picked up hundreds of negatives from an estate sale in Montana, and decided to sell them off individually.  By the time I found these, the collection had been pretty much picked over.  I think it's the  dream of every photo collector to find a secret cache of photos from an unknown, yet talented photographer.  Sadly, with this lot broken up, and sold off,  we'll never know what the complete archive had to offer.

Oh, and I hand printed them back when I was still working in a photo lab.

Happy Cows

Remember the California Milk Commission commercials about happy cows and happy milk?

Anyway, I know a lot of vegan, animal lovers, animal rights types and they're always telling me about how intelligent animals are, almost always comparing animal intelligence to human intelligence.  Having grown up in a small rural town, having worked on farms, and being an avid hiker backpacker who has seen plenty of animals up close, I always point out that we are all intelligent in the way we need to be to survive, and it's foolish to compare people and, let's say cattle.  Still, I can't help but wonder, is the one cow saying to the other, "I hate being all penned up in a zoo.  Ah, to run free."  While the other replies, "Well, we're not being eaten here, so stop complaining."  

Another contact print with glass negative from Toronto.  Perhaps the Toronto Zoo.

Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Poultry)

Yes it is a birdman and he loves his poultry.  But does he love eggs or meat?  Anyway, this one goes back awhile.  I can remember purchasing the glass negative and this contact print at a flea market in Toronto, Ontario.  I had an Uncle who lived in the city, and from time to time, I'd get dumped on his front step.

One of these days, I'll have to dig out the neg and make a print of my own.

Two-Up

This is a very small print and was probably cut from a longer strip.  At least I've run across some other strip images that have about six or seven frames.  I'm told that they were made in a camera, specially made to make multiple images on a glass plate negative.

50,000 + How It All Started

I just took a quick look at the stats page and noticed that, sometime in the past week or so, I went over 50,000 page views. I have no idea whether that's a big number for a blog like this or not, but when I started this I was lucky to get thirty or forty views a month, so it seems big to me. Anyway, to mark the 50,000 milestone, I thought I would do something I've never done before. I'm repeating myself. These seven images, all hand printed, by me, form the original glass negatives, are the very first photographs I posted on The New Found Photography.

I think it must be the dream of every collector of old photographs to walk into some out of the way junk shop and find a box of photos by an unknown photographer of real talent. I sometimes wonder, if circumstances had been a bit different, if this could have been my discovery. It was back in the good old days when I had a full time job, a decent income, and three weeks of paid vacation a year. I had just finished a backpacking trip in Montana, had cleaned up, packed the car, and was headed home to Los Angeles, when I made an impulse stop at an antique store, well more of a junk shop actually, and found these glass negatives. The owner of the place told me that he once had a crate of images, all from the same source. He thought that there must have been 500 or so, but he had broken up the collection. He had given some of them away, thrown some out, (Not because they were damaged or not very good, but because they were taking up too much space.) and had been selling the rest for a couple of bucks a piece. He had about forty or so left, but for reasons I've never understood, thought credit cards were for suckers, and it was a cash only sale. I bought these seven, got his phone number, and after I got home called him up, and offered to send him a check for the rest, but he said, "Nah, it's too much work."

I wonder what those other negatives might have been like. And I also wonder who took them. Perhaps it was a local professional or maybe an amateur who had a primitive darkroom in the fruit cellar. When I look at the farm photograph, I don't see the mother of the family, so I sometimes speculate that the photographer was a woman. We will never know, and any chance of finding out has, I think, been destroyed by a road side vendor, who thought more highly of telephone poll insulators, old barbed wire, and 50 year old beer bottles than he did of a box of glass negatives, and the unknown photographer who recorded a small, intimate piece of Montana history.

Glass Negative Nudes

I've got to find the money to set up my darkroom. Some more images from back in the day when I was a professional photo printer. I made these from a couple of glass negatives that I picked up at an antique store. The one model seems to be channeling Louise Brooks, which gives a date from late teens to late twenties.

Glass Negative of a Garment Factory

This is one of my great regrets. When I was working at the photo lab, I could have made a high quality enlargement of this, instead all I ever got around to was this quick and dirty contact print from a beautiful razor sharp 8 x 10 glass negative.

Old Man

Another image from my days at the photo lab. This print was hand printed, by me, from an old, 19th century glass negative. As I've noted in some previous posts, while it was possible to buy commercially manufactured glass plates, many photographers made their own. Click on the image to open it in a bigger window, and water stains from either the making or processing of the negative can be seen as a streak across the subjects face. Too, the photographers finger print can be seen in the lower right corner. The one question; was the photographer an amateur, or some small town professional with a home made camera.

Small Town Glass Negatives

A couple of glass negatives, one I wanted, and one was the throw in. I've always assumed that these two images, if not by the same photographer, were at least from the same small town. While glass negatives were manufactured, and processed by local labs, many glass negatives were made by the photographer, and processed by the photographer. This allowed for a huge disparity in the basic quality of negatives. I printed these by putting them in an 8 x 10 enlarger, and had a hell of a time getting usable prints. The emulsion was uneven, and the plates were over exposed. I assume that the group photo is a multi-generational family, and while this is the image I was really interested in, it is interesting to see a small town before paved streets.

Trains

Not all of my old photos are of people. This is another one of the images that, when I was working in a photo lab, I made copy negs and prints from. The original is an old albumen print, very likely from the late 19th century through the early 20th, and probably made from a glass negative. I 'd love to know where the photographer was standing. The image makes me think that this may have been a professionally made, commissioned image. I imagine that the camera was not a small, hand held one, but one mounted on a tripod. It's difficult to take a quick snap and then step out of the way of an oncoming train with one of those.

The Munson Coronet Band

Before radio; before television, many small towns had bands that played in the local town square. These two images are albumen prints. Albumen prints were made by suspending photographic silver in egg whites, which were then used to coat the printing paper. Very likely these two photographs are contact prints made from glass negatives.

Mail Pouch

I don't have a lot of landscapes in the collection, but I've always liked this one. It shows a mail pouch, and earlier version of the modern mail box. Note the three hunters, just down the rutted dirt road. A nineteenth century albumen print, very likely a contact print made from a glass negative.

Canoe From Glass Negatives

I've always thought of myself, not as a photographer, but as a printer. One of the frustrating things about no longer having a job at a photo lab, is not having access to large format enlargers. Like the Montana glass negative photos, (see the first post from this blog, published June 9, 2009.) I made these prints, not by making contacts, but by placing the negatives in an 8x10 enlarger and making blow-ups. Probably shot in the late 19th century, these two images show someone who is very likely using a canoe for recreation.

Montana Glass Negatives

One of the reasons that I hate antique dealers is that they break up collections of photographs to increase their profits. I purchased these images in Montana. It's kind of the dream of all photo collectors to discover a large collection of images from an unknown, though clearly, talented photographer. Looking at this group of images, I think I may have found one, but with only a handful of the negatives still left together, we'll never know. I think the image of the farm family one of the strongest photographs I've ever seen. The portraits of the cowboy and beekeeper are amazing. I showed these to a movie costumer who dated the clothing to the late 19th to early 20th century. Because there is no mother in the farm scene, I think the photographer might have been the mother, making her glass negaties, at home, in the kitchen. Click on images to see them in a larger window.

I used to work in a photo lab where I had access to an 8x10 enlarger. I was able to use it to make high quality blow-ups. These images were made directly from the negatives, rather than copy negs made from contact prints.