Permanence

Manhattan Island is a wide and deep repository of man's creative produce. Contributions there form a spectrum of the world's great cultures— from the very best of the most immediate expressions to those going back decades, many centuries, even millennia. It is breathtaking in the sweep of its scope. Superlatives can accurately describe these works as monumental, astounding, beautiful.

There are arts ephemeral, and fleeting; creations existing only in the moment–
performance arts (music, drama, oration, dance)– that evaporate into the air as soon as created–
gastronomic, culinary, and vintner arts– as they are experienced are soon down the drain and into the sewer.

And then there are arts more permanent– 
painting, literature, sculpture, architecture– lasting beyond the life of the artist.

Yet in the end, even the most enduring of these arts– architecture– will see its end. On the other side of the globe, although having lasted millennia, so far, the great Pyramids will one day be no more than dust. I am reminded of Shelley's sonnet, written on the occasion of seeing the fragmented monumental statue of Ramesses II:

Ozymandias

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

The best of man's creative works can be astounding, but given time, all will fade away and be lost. The only creative works to last beyond the test and erosion of time remain those conceived first in the heart of God. As the human artist (or any human for that matter) consults and cooperates with the Holy Spirit, works can come forth that are not only lasting and durable, but everlasting and of eternal worth.

"For what is your life? Certainly it is a mist, or vapor, that appears for a little while and then vanishes away."  — James 4.14

Strange Fruit

And now for something completely different:

I am finally breaking my extended fast (has it really been eight months?) from posting to this venue. While I will continue offering my thoughts and musings concerning the arts, in general, and photography, in particular, I expect to range farther from this target on a frequent basis. This post is evidence of that.

A couple of days ago it was June the twenty fourth. The Vatican's calendar of feasts celebrates it as the birthday of John the Baptizer. John is also variously noted by different traditions as the Forerunner, the Last Prophet, and as the Herald of the Lamb. My own smartphone calendar buzzed an alarm in my pocket and I remembered this was my day to harvest the fruit waiting for me down at the end of our driveway.

Green walnuts waiting to be harvested
© Bill Brockmeier, 2014

The fruit waiting to be plucked were not at all typical. So unusual they were, that I might be the lone human on the planet harvesting them. The fruit is very green, very unripe. They have the size and sphericity of a ping-pong ball. Their material consistency lies  somewhere between that of balsa wood and cork. In South Texas we call the tree on which it grows a "nogalito," the diminutive form of "nogal" ("walnut"), or, "little walnut."

For twenty years this little tree flourished at the edge of our Hill Country property. I say "flourished" but it neither grew fast nor tall. Having grown up in the Midwest I was familiar with the native American "black walnut" and when we moved to this property I recognized the little sapling struggling to survive. At least I thought I did.

Every day as I walked down to the mailbox I passed my baby walnut tree. Every time I saw it I imagined what it would look like some day in the future. Of course, it would become like every other black walnut I had seen: majestic in stature, abundant in provision, showering my yard with shade and bushels of those pungent, sweet, delectable nuts. "Ahhhh, I can't wait" I thought. But I would have to. Trees like I imagined took decades to produce.

Year by year I surveyed my little walnut. It grew, but slowly– very slowly. Would it ever produce anything?

Finally, it flowered one spring and I could imagine the nuts to follow. But when the nuts formed that summer and began to fall that autumn there was no joy. I picked up one of the nuts and knocked away the drying husk from around the hard shell. My excitement faded and I felt as though some evil trick had been played on me. Inside the husk was, indeed, a black walnut shell like I had seen so often in my youth– with one exception. The hard shell on this nut was no bigger than a small grape.

I found a limestone cobble a little bigger than my fist and expended the impact of its momentum upon the little nut as it rested on a much larger rock. The stone-like shell of the walnut gave under the collision and the nutmeat hidden inside was now revealed.

In comparison to the common English (more properly, Persian) walnut, the nutmeat in a normal American black walnut is small– maybe half the Persian's volume. But the nutmeat in the little shell I had just violated was almost non-existent: like two grains of rice. To accumulate enough of these nutmeats to fill even a little half-pint jelly jar, I could imagine it would take all of the nuts from all of the trees in a square-mile walnut orchard. And it would probably take ten man-years of labor to liberate the meats from their tiny hard-shell prisons. Disappointment abounded.

My Nogalito, about 15 feet high
© Bill Brockmeier, 2014

Over the next couple of years, the nuts continued to show up on the little tree, which never did grow much taller (less than twenty feet). And the nuts, likewise, refused to bulk up (no more than a centimeter in diameter). What was going on here? Via the internet I began investigating the walnut botanical family. I soon discovered that my little tree was not the classic American "Black Walnut" (Juglans nigra) but a somewhat different regional species known locally and variously as the "Nogalito," "Texas Walnut," "River Walnut," or "Little Black Walnut." "Little" Black Walnut, indeed! The botanical name for the species is even more revealing: Juglans microcarpa, or literally, the "walnut with tiny fruit."

The diminutive stature of the nogalito probably came about as the American Black Walnut arrived at the doorstep of the Chihuahuan Desert in southwestern Texas. The arid conditions, coupled with the lack of deep soil on the Edwards' Plateau most likely selected dwarfed forms of the tree. These miniature copies of the majestic Black Walnut would be imminently more suited to survival on the edge of a desert.

I was crushed. I loved the little tree, but a little tree, with little nuts, it would stay. No large havens of shade in the front yard. No bushels of wonderful black walnuts to enjoy. Oh, the humiliation...

A couple of years later I had acquired an interest in developing new liqueurs. In the process of educating myself about the history of liqueurs as well as their current state, I stumbled across an obscure strong drink created by the farmers near Modena (home of  Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati) in Emilia-Romagna of northern Italy centuries ago. The libation (actually, a digestivo)  is called "nocino" (pronounced "noh-CHEEEE-noh") and is based on a grain-spirit extraction of, amazingly, green unripe walnuts. The concoction is not a large-scale, commercial liqueur that can be found at your local package store, but is only available in very limited quantities from the farmers who craft it.

The recipes for nocino (also known as "liqueur de noix' in France) vary considerably, and their details are often entrusted from one generation to the next. But they typically combine a handful of diverse (and usually secret) spices and herbs with the constant of unripe, whole walnuts. The mix is combined with a high-proof grain alcohol to extract all of the aromatic oils and essences, mainly from the nut's green husk, and commonly aged for several years– the longer, the better.

The walnuts are traditionally harvested on John the Baptist's feast day (Festa di San Giovanni) on June 24. Taking the nuts this early in the summer insures that they are quite underdeveloped, with the shells beneath the husks still fleshy and easily cut up with a knife. Quartering them allows the alcohol to fully penetrate the body of the husk, shell, and nut and draw out all of the wonderful nature within.

Descriptions of the final liquid are near universal: inky-black in color and constitution, and possessing flavors and aromas that border on heavenly. The ink-like color is attributable to the walnut husk's chemical makeup. The compound juglone is responsible for the blackness of the liquid, and it has been used in years past for making ink, fabric dye, herbicide, and henna temporary tattoos. The FDA refers to it as "Natural Brown Dye No. 7." Who would be tempted to drink something an opaque black in color? It would not only be like drinking ink, it would, literally, be drinking ink. But everyone who has tasted nocino raves about the indescribable and unmatched flavor.

As I began thinking about it, I wondered how I might get a hold of some green walnuts. They would certainly not be available at the supermarket, for one even as well-stocked as ours. And then the light came on. The little nogalito at the end of our driveway-- it grows nuts, doesn't it? And in this case, size certainly does not matter.  This could be the perfect use for such a useless tree bearing equally useless fruit.

A portion of the harvest
© Bill Brockmeier, 2014

Although it was already August and the feast of John the Baptist was long past, I collected an ample supply of the still green nuts. As I picked them a marvelous aroma began to fill the atmosphere. Both the nut husks as well as the leaves near them would bruise from my efforts to locate and pluck them from the branches. In response to the bruising the tree exuded a powerful aroma, difficult to describe. The olfactory effect is wonderfully fresh, yet earthy and dark. Something of the pungency of that wonderful Asian spice, cardamom, was in the background, with a myriad of other less identifiable herbs. Once having smelled it, calling up deep memories of this aroma is easy, and yet, it seems to escape being captured in words.

I gathered four pounds of the nuts and then attempted to prepare them for the alcohol extraction. While most recipes describe quartering the whole nuts with a heavy kitchen knife or cleaver, the shells on these nuts were already beyond that process. The tiny nut shells inside were as hard as stone and unyielding to a steel edge. Since the details of making nocino seem to be a collaboration between tradition and improvisation, I chose the latter in opening up the nuts.

I located my two-pound handheld sledge hammer and my fifty-pound iron anvil. I cleaned them both and then placed the anvil inside of a new large trash bag. Placing the whole nuts one at a time on the surface of the anvil, I struck them soundly with a quick blow from the sledge. The nut's hull, shell, and meats inside splattered vigorously inside the trash bag, leaving the anvil empty and ready to be reloaded. I carried this out until the entire four pounds had been reduced to a pulpy rubble in the bag. I moved the contents to a couple of large, bale-locked and sealed, wide-mouth glass jars (made in Italy, appropriately) and then added a mix of spices (a marriage between a traditional Italian recipe and my own secret twists) to one of the jars. I finally topped both containers by filling them with neutral grain spirits (vodka + Everclear).

I placed no spices in the second jar as I had some totally different plans for it. This green walnut neutral liqueur would become the base for a whole new direction in liqueur development (another story for another time).

Both jars would marinate in their own juices for nearly three months. For the duration they remained hidden in the dark, except for the one minute every two or three days when I pulled them out of hibernation and shook them to redistribute the stuff inside and enhance the liberation of goodness.

At the end of three months I filtered the mess from both jars through a few layers of cheese cloth in order to separate the desired liquid from the vegetable matter. By this time the liquid had become jet black (it really did look like ink) and all of the fibrous matter was equally black and unrecognizable. I had been cautioned by all I had read to avoid trying "just a taste" of the nocino at this point. To a person, they said that it would be bitter and entirely undrinkable at this stage. I saw no reason to ignore their warnings. I could wait until its time was right.

The making of a nocino is not for those without patience. Most sources say that it will only begin to be drinkable at one year. And if you can wait long enough, it apparently continues to mature in smoothness, depth, and subtlety for several years to come. But it also sounds that as it begins to become really good, not many people can keep from drinking it all up before it ever reaches the peak of perfection.

With last year's nocino still a product in waiting, my new supply of Saint John's Day walnuts– all twelve pounds of them– now lie in a bag on the kitchen floor. This year's harvest from my little tree was unexpectedly larger than my initial estimate of it. This should ultimately yield nearly two and a half gallons of nocino.

In previous months as I awaited the arrival of John the Baptizer's feast day I often thought about what I should call this liqueur. Although "nocino" would certainly be acceptable, it seemed that something else should grace its final label. And then it came to me. The little nogalito, while certainly not on most people's lists of "favorite trees of the Hill Country and South Texas," should receive the distinction it deserves. The liqueur, having made its way from rural Italy to rural Texas, should be christened "nogalito + nocino," or "Nogaliño" (pronounced "noh-gal-EEN-yoh").

While I prepare to crush my 360 walnuts (it turns out there are about 30 nuts to a pound) I think I will open and enjoy a bottle of appropriate wine I made last year– walnut leaf wine! Buon appetito!

Good To Be Alive

It was a spectacular and glorious day in La Villita: the deep emerald leaves of live oaks still basked in the moisture of recent rains, the little centuries-old houses huddled in this unique little neighborhood, and the sapphire sky-vault stretched out above. A breeze occasionally wafted through the courtyard before us, enticing our skin with the coolness promised by autumn.  Even a die-hard fan of South Texas summers like myself revels in the first cool days of September.

Photographs hanging on the front of the San Martin House in La Villita

La Villita ("The Little Village") neighborhood is wonderful in so many little ways: its tight proximity to the Riverwalk community, the authentic historic architecture, the art-aware ambiance, and much more. But what most draws my own affection are the people whom I encounter in La Villita: both those working there and the ones who choose to enjoy its treasures for just a day. In the presence of good company and lively conversation what more could one want? And yet, the day had plenty more. Surrounded by all these blessings it didn't even seem to matter whether the day ahead would be one of record-setting sales for me or none at all.

The San Martin House in July 1939,
when the house was a mere 200 yrs. old

Every once in a while I remember, yet again, that it doesn't matter so much what my own peculiar agenda for the day might be, but the importance of the day, and of life, is in appreciating the thousand simple blessings that permeate each of my hours– each minute, in fact. It can be good to be alive, especially so if we don't just "get by" and survive through it but learn to fully live in it, even in the midst of simply surviving. Gratitude for the amazing gift that life truly is can make our time here, short though it is, filled with meaning and significance. 

As the sun rises, or the moon sets, enjoy the wonder of what surrounds you and thank Him Who gave it all. 

ESPADA PRISM

ESPADA PRISM,
© Bill Brockmeier,
all rights reserved by the artist

The San Antonio Spanish Missions are an incredible collection of history, architecture, and living faith.  While the three Missions closest to downtown San Antonio are, by far, the most visited of the five, the two southern-most Missions are remarkable in their own distinct ways and certainly worthy of investing considerable time.

The farthest south— "Mission Espada" (Misión San Francisco de la Espada) is actually outside of Loop/IH-410 and on the very periphery of the San Antonio metropolitan area.  Of the five Missions, this one is probably the smallest in size, but it makes up for its diminutive real estate with intimacy, intensity, and authenticity.

True spiritual relationship is founded upon intimacy, and the ambience of Espada is nothing if not intimate (no pretensions allowed here).  The solace and solitude that can be encountered there is almost palpable.  After entering the much-discussed portal, find your seat, enter the quiet, and wait.  The One to Whom this building was dedicated is, Himself, still waiting to visit His peace upon you.

The morning that I captured this image (ESPADA PRISM), the sunlight streamed through the tall arched window, spilling into the dim interior of Espada.  As the light tumbled through the glass, it fell upon the rugged wood benches, reflecting softly from the satin patina— polished by the generations of parishioners that have sat there.

A cross, clearly formed by the framework of the window's glazing is echoed in the small cross on the wall that signifies the "Sixth Station." A coarse woven cloth lies at the bottom of the window, reminiscent of the garment that was stripped from Jesus before He was hung on the cross. Overhead, beams of wood seem solemn and heavy with weight, as the beam that Jesus carried to His place of execution was physically heavy upon His shoulders, and ultimately, as the weight of the world's sin was heavy upon Him on the cross, and He cried out: "Lord! Lord! Why have you forsaken me?"

Brought down to earth, the beam of light finally rests upon the kneeling rails, illuminating their vividly-hued woven coverings.  The colors seem to be the very spectrum itself, the various wavelengths of light broken apart and spread out from the original white light. I reflected upon the diversity and distinction of individual Believers, refracted, as it were, as individual "colors" from the pure, white Light of the Holy Spirit Himself.

_______________________________________

Note: this is another of Bill's very limited editions on large-scale canvas (20 copies only) from his San Antonio Missions series of photographs

On Espada Prism

   – © Bill Brockmeier

Light.
Living,
   in Truth
   and Beauty—
      unapproachable.

Streaming down,
 the Beam's divided,
   separated,
   cut asunder
 by beams
   vertical,
   horizontal.


Spear point,
 piercing upward,
 separates
      blood from water,
      marrow from bone,
      spirit from flesh.

Horizon,
 cutting outward,
 divides
   hell from heaven,
   death from life,
   dark from light,
   night from day—
The First Day.


The Light cries
 and bleeds,
 weeping great drops of blood,
   dripping down,
   streaming down
 upon the children.

Bloody drops separate,
 cut by bloody hearts
   into tongues of Light,
 resting on the Children.

Light,
 now more finely divided,
   becomes the promise-bow.

The Knowledge of Ignorance

My work as a research optical engineer involves the intersection of lasers and human vision. Recently, this prompted me to take a look at what is frequently referred to as the Stiles-Crawford effect. Although the effect was discovered back in the 1930s I read a much more recent review of the history of this discovery and its subsequent development.

W. Stanley Stiles first began his experiments investigating the glare effects of looking into oncoming headlights while driving at night. While the glare and its attendant problems were his primary concern he stumbled onto a totally unexpected feature of the human visual system along the way. Although I won't go into what may be for you totally boring details of the effect, suffice it to say that has to do with the highly directional light sensitivity of the retina's cone cells. Of course, these cells are the ones that are primarily responsible for the eye's ability to discriminate color and to detect small details. 

Visual Interface, © Bill Brockmeier
all rights reserved

While the effect itself is very interesting to me personally from a number of different aspects, what most caught my attention was that 80 years later those closest to this problem still have no conclusive understanding of its mechanism. It is simply amazing that with all of the modern biological microscopic imaging, high powered computer modeling and such that this simple effect still escapes a clear definition as to its cause.

The article went into some detail concerning modeling work that had been done over recent years to "prove" a waveguide theory as the basis of the effect's operation. This work has shown the theory to be inconclusive at best. Other theories were likewise recounted in the review, as were their shortcomings.

The review delved deeply into very minute details of the structure of the cone cells– how they are organized, and how they most likely function. An incredible level of understanding currently exists of what goes on in these tiny detectors of light, and yet, this understanding does not yet provide a full picture of how an effect discovered nearly a century ago fundamentally works. Perhaps a full and accurate explanation lies just around the corner...or perhaps not.

It seems that regardless of one's pursuit in life, the more one understands about it and the more expert we become, the more we understand our own ignorance and how little we really know. Deep and real knowledge always seems to bring with it a strong dose of humility. 

THE INVITATION: a Diptych

Open Portal (Damascus Road) and
                Open Window (Jacobs Dream)

This dual photograph came about in a rather circuitous manner, which I will not go into here, but can be found in a previous post. The initial recording of the photograph was mostly unremarkable. I do remember, however, being impressed by the artificial "canyon-like" space between the two limestone walls of Mission San Jose's sanctuary and convento. The walls are fairly close together, built of limestone blocks, and the roof is simply the sky above– reminiscent of "The Window," a unique slot canyon in Big Bend National Park.

I first composed a vertical panoramic shot toward the west, and later realigned from the same location to compose another vertical shot to the east. At the time, there was no attempt to connect one image with the other.
 The sky overhead was mostly a high, thin layer of nearly homogeneous cloud cover, with some blue showing through directly above. The thin layer allowed some direct sunlight to reach the surface of the earth, so shadows were clearly cast, but they were somewhat diffused and softened by the cloud cover.

OPEN PORTAL
© Bill Brockmeier,
All rights reserved.

OPEN WINDOW
© Bill Brockmeier,
All rights reserved.

The completed images are certainly complementary. These are bookends, or maybe parenthetical symbols. They are strikingly symmetric in composition and geometry, yet assuredly asymmetric in subject, tone, and feeling. When they are properly viewed together, the view to the west (OPEN PORTAL) is on the left, with the view to the east (OPEN WINDOW) on the right.

The view directly up into the sky displays strong geometric symmetry between the two images. The precision of the symmetry is all that more amazing when I realize that I had made no such attempt at symmetry when I composed them separately. The symmetry of the compositions continues downward from the large lit space at the top, to the middle and somewhat smaller open spaces, and finally to the smallest bits of sky below that. These three open views to the sky in each image are likewise separated in the compositions by corresponding spans of rock.

The colors revealed in the sky in the two images, however, are asymmetrically flipped: OPEN PORTAL shows the bit of blue at the top, while OPEN WINDOW registers the blue toward the bottom. This bit of asymmetry causes the eye's interest to circulate in a clockwise pattern when viewing from one image to the other. And while the shadows on the ground in OPEN PORTAL continue to sweep upward in a continuous arc with the tops of the walls overhead, the situation is distinctly different in OPEN WINDOW. Here, the primitive wooden beam/ladder is quite out of place with the arc formed by the windows and the opening overhead. The beam, instead, seems to be trying to emulate the direction of the arc in the other image.

Beyond the purely geometric aspect of the dual composition, there is a richer and more significant parallel between these images. The image toward the east I have called OPEN WINDOW for obvious reasons. I have subtitled it JACOB'S DREAM. The primitive, undecorated subject takes one back to the dawn of history– maybe even pre-history. The crudeness of the hand-hewn beam adds to the primeval atmosphere. Mystery abounds in this image: the disparate shapes of the stacked windows, the unknown purpose of the beam, and why is it stacked there?

I have come to see that this image reminds me of the story of Jacob's fleeing from his brother Esau in Canaan. On his way to a place he'd never been, he finally tired and rested in the wilderness. Lying on the open ground, he placed his head on a rock for a pillow, and dreamt a dream of cosmic proportions. He saw the heavens opened, and messengers of God ascending and descending on a ladder– a stairway extending from the earthly plane on which he lived and slept to the heights of God's abode in unapproachable light above. Though he was fleeing for his life, he was reminded of God's promise to both him and his progeny. God's Invitation was extended to Jacob to enter into and receive the promise.

The image toward the west I have called OPEN PORTAL. Although there are numerous parallels and congruencies between this view and the other, the change in subject, perspective, and sense is dramatic. Where the eastern view was primitive and mystical in nature, this view is refined and accessible. The crudeness of the rough hewn beam in OPEN WINDOW is countered here by the finely conceived and crafted stone carving of the portal. The geometric symmetry between the two images is echoed by the two palms in terracotta pots flanking the portal. Overall, this setting, while still old by present standards, seems much closer to our own century than the view to the east.

This image recalls for me another "Invitation." In an era later than Jacob's by nearly two millennia, another young man was flying like the wind from his own city to a foreign place. This Saul, however, was not in flight for fear of his own life, but he was driven by his determination to hunt and chase down others to the point of their destruction. But his plan was interrupted by a vision as overwhelming as Jacob's had been.

Fully awake and filled with violent intention, he was knocked from his mount by a surrounding light that was far brighter than the noonday sun. The intensity of the brightness and the realization of the sad truth of his own life not only instantly struck him blind, but profoundly changed the course of his life. The LORD of Life, Whose followers this Saul had sought to destroy, had sought even Saul, and invited him to follow Him and receive His promise.

These two Invitations, though separated by a score of centuries, are, yet, fundamentally the same. And this Creator of all life continues to extend His Invitation even to this present age. He still reveals Himself through dreams, even violent visions if necessary to capture our attention, and calls us to receive the priceless promise he offers.

_____________________________________

These photographs are available in Very Limited Editions of only 10 copies each, printed and mounted archivally on special canvas. A special discount is available when purchasing the pair as a diptych.  The full, framed size is about 72 by 20 inches.    Call now to reserve yours— 210-241-6132.

Immersion

Hidden behind a viewfinder
("The Photojournalist,"
Andreas Feinenger's
portrait of  Dennis Stock)

Hiding behind a camera isolates a photographer from their subject, whatever that subject might be. There is a way to break through the isolation and though it should be obvious, many never try it.

It seems like forever since I last wrote concerning the mechanics of composition. And you may not remember that when I first approached the subject I said that there have historically been three main modes of accomplishing this. Well...I actually touched on only the first two: the groundglass and the viewfinder. Hmmmm...whatever happened to that missing third?...and what even was it, anyway?

Whether looking at a surrogate of the final photograph on a groundglass (or its modern digital counterpart), or at a limited view of the world through a viewfinder, a photographer is usually isolated to some degree from the world he hopes to image. However, there is a third way of composing the image that actually connects the artist to the subject and immerses them in the world.

Hidden behind a groundglass

In the 1920s and 1930s, cameras had sufficiently progressed technologically to where they were relatively portable, light-weight, and technically simple to operate. Smaller, faster photographic materials ("film") coupled with faster lens systems also had a major impact. These factors had the distinct effect of allowing the photographer to leave the studio behind and begin finding photographic adventure "on the street." It was a monumental leap for the photographic artist to see her art and craft as not simply that of portraiture and still-life in the studio or even of landscapes (if she dared venture out of doors). She could now join the rest of humanity where they lived much of their lives– in action and on the street. This was the beginning of what we would today call photojournalism.

The groundglass obviously became a totally useless antiquity in this new setting. And even though most cameras still contained a viewfinder, those who looked for the real breath of life on the street (and wherever life happened) couldn't be confined behind the optical system of a viewfinder. They preferred to walk among their people, maybe with the camera held at their waist instead of raised to their eye, looking their subjects directly in the eye– eye to eye.

This visual communication allowed the artist to be in real human relationship with their subject, however brief that might be. The subject now saw the photographer as another human being rather than some kind of bio-opto-mechanical-hybrid monster. And the photographer could now see their subject as not simply some image to be composed within a little rectangular frame, but as a real, living and breathing person who existed within a larger environment.

This alternative mode of composing an image abandons the precision of framing and composition that is offered by the groundglass and the viewfinder, but it definitely makes up for this deficit with increased intimacy and immediacy with the subject. This mode takes some practice to get right, but muscle-memory will eventually take over and make "aiming from the hip" second nature.

Try taking photographs with your camera at waist level— don't worry, with modern cameras "film" is cheap, no, FREE! Take as many as you like, attempting to frame the image you desire. When your practice sessions are over you can easily discard your attempts. Do this often, over a period of weeks and months, and you will see a steadily improving ability to point your camera from waist-level at anything you are looking at and capture an image that accurately frames the one you imagined.

A side benefit of all this is that you can also gain a deepening aesthetic sense that can free you from overly depending upon precision and analysis. Enjoy your new-found freedom!

Finding the View

Front of an optical viewfinder system
(subject side)

The groundglass was an early and major innovation in composing the photograph and it was soon followed by the viewfinder. While the groundglass was a "focal" (image producing) type of system, the viewfinder is a distinctly "afocal" (non-imaging) scheme. The point of this particular compositional aid is not to produce a duplicate, or surrogate, of the photographic image, but to allow the photographer to continue looking "out into the world"– with the additional assistance of a synthetic framing boundary overlaying the visual scene. This artificial frame represents and marks the region of the scene that will be captured by the actual photograph.

Rear of optical viewfinder system
(eye side)

The first (and most rudimentary) viewfinder was a simple set of wire frames through which the photographer viewed the scene directly with his eyes, with no intervening lenses or other optical components. This simple metal framing device was something akin to the aiming sight on a rifle or gun. It allowed the photographer to retain a fairly intimate connection to the real world while, at the same time, having some objective means of properly aiming the camera and understanding what the photograph's ultimate composition would be. The photographer simply lined up the two metal frames with each other and then observed what part of the scene appeared within the frame. It was simple, quick, cheap, and effective– a very attractive combination of attributes.

As photographic hardware developed over the decades optical technology became not only more sophisticated but less expensive and, therefore, more available. This made it possible for the viewfinder to advance from a simple pair of geometric framing devices to a true optical system comprised of multiple optical components. The optical viewfinder system would allow placement of the camera close to the photographer's eye, and through which the photographer would be able to view the scene, with the ultimate image conveniently framed. The effect of this was something like viewing the world through a telescope or binoculars, albeit with a rectangular rather than circular framed field of view.

Looking into viewfinder

The optical nature of this viewfinder system also allowed many new additions to what this device was capable of. Precision reticles could be inserted into the interior of the viewfinders that would allow changing the field of view to match whatever lens (for example, wide angle or normal) happened to be placed on the camera. The optical components of the viewfinder could also be mechanically coupled to the focusing system of the camera's main lens to help the photographer know when the camera was properly focused without moving his eye from the viewfinder. As practical zoom lenses were eventually invented and added to the photographer's bag of tricks, the viewfinder became a zoomable device as well, with its zooming capability coupled to the main lens's zoom state, thus providing the photographer with an accurate view of the photograph's composition.

As cameras became more and more electronically instrumented, the display of the camera's exposure state (shutter time, lens aperture, and film speed) was ultimately incorporated into what could be seen within the viewfinder. At this point the photographer no longer had to take his eye away from the viewfinder to adjust the camera settings. He could remain looking at the composition of the photograph while simultaneously and actively manipulating the exposure state, lens focus, and zoom of the camera. This was a powerfully attractive capability, but as with most powerful technologies there was a price to be paid.

Scene framed in viewfinder

Just as the groundglass caused earlier generations of photographers to retreat from the real world under the isolation of their blackout cloth, this new generation would be isolated behind the camera body, with their open eye pressed up close to the rear of the optical viewfinder. The world beyond the photographer (the subject) could not now maintain true eye contact with the photographer, who began to appear as something of a mechanical man– his head and face replaced by a black rectangular box and a glass lens as his Cyclopean eye, staring coldly out into the world.

It would seem that regardless of the technology involved, there is always a tendency for the photographic artist to be removed from their immersion in the real world and be inserted into an isolated, artificial world. And perhaps that is the bain of all artists– that their art would attempt to dominate and replace the real, objective universe and the real human lives within it with a world of their own making. The power and beauty of artful creation can be seductive– for the creator as well as the beholder.

The Groundglass

Composing a photographic image is really the "guts" of the photographic arts.  A little while back here I delved into many of the details involved in the decisions that must be made in order to arrive at a particular composition. Those particular decisions I examined were independent from any hardware considerations. All of these "editing" choices were influenced solely by the mind and artistic sensibilities of the artist. I'd like to turn now to the various hardware (and their related techniques) that enable the photographer to make those choices and effectively arrive at a successful composition.

How does a photographer know and select when the right image has been achieved? Three basic methods (and their respective hardware systems) have been developed over the past couple of centuries: the groundglass, the optical viewfinder, and P&S (point and shoot). Although this list is more or less an historical sequence it does not quite reflect a linear evolution as it has ebbed and flowed and produced hybrid results along the way.

Rudimentary groundglass setup,
using a magnifying glass as the imaging lens,
 and white plastic film as the groundglass,
© Bill Brockmeier, 2012

Early in the development of photography the photosensitive material responsible for the recording of the image was in the form of a plate. In the beginning it was the metal plate (daguerreotypes, tintypes, etc.), which eventually gave way to the glass plate. Since these rigid and planar photosensitive surfaces were modular in form it was pretty obvious early on that they could be simply exchanged for a similar-sized glass plate that was "ground" rough on one side (frosted). This frosted surface would diffusely scatter the image's light, and would act as a kind of projection screen so the image itself could be viewed and focused properly. This would also allow the photographer to adjust the location and direction of the camera while watching the image in real time.

Fundamentally, the operator was looking directly at what the final photograph would look like, identical in size as well as composition, albeit upside-down due to the geometric realities of lenses. When in place, the groundglass became the surrogate for the photographic plate. Once the proper focus and desired composition was set the groundglass could be removed and the actual photographic plate inserted in its place. Finally, the image would be exposed onto the photographic plate and recorded for posterity. With the camera work complete all that remained was to chemically reveal (develop and stabilize) the image on the plate.

HIS OWN WORLD, © Bill Brockmeier, 2012
all rights reserved.

This ability to directly see what the final photograph would be seemed axiomatic for the definition of photographic art. Analogous to a painter viewing a scene and then manipulating pigments on a canvas, the photographer would view the scene directly and then retire to beneath his blackout cloth to view the image on the groundglass and manipulate it by modifying the location and direction of the camera and its lens settings.

Hidden beneath his black cloth and behind his camera, the artist is optically isolated from the real scene and is alone with his illuminated image on the groundglass. Of the three basic composition systems I mentioned above this method probably most removes the artist from the external reality which is the source of his image. This situation, coupled with the fact that the image is being viewed upside-down, provides a certain level of abstraction of the image. Only by frequent immersion in this inverted image-world and by a dogged determination to see the real world-as-it-is beyond this inversion can the abstraction be avoided.

The image on the groundglass is actually evidence not of the scene (the objective reality) but rather of the photograph– the image, the art, even the mind of the artist (the subjective reality). This groundglass method of composing the image, as archaic and outmoded as it seems today, has achieved a high renaissance in recent years. Although most don't realize it, modern computerized digital cameras possess their own high-technology version of the groundglass– the electronic display.

The electronic display–
a modern version of the groundglass plate,
© Bill Brockmeier, 2012

This electronic display sits on the back of the camera, just like the real groundglass of more than a century ago, and is the ultimate result of an image focused on the photosensitive surface inside the camera. While the true groundglass reveals the image simply and directly, the electronic display is coupled to the image by a hidden and unimaginably complex chain of digital electronics. The photographer here, as with the groundglass, is looking at a surrogate of what the final photograph will actually be, rather than somehow looking out directly into the scene itself. One difference, however, is that modern camera makers have bowed to conventional notions of reality and have re-inverted (or maybe un-inverted) the image so the photographer views it right-side-up. Although most users probably appreciate this I'm not sure this is actually a plus for the artist. I believe that leaving the image upside-down can allow a more intimate access to the actual power and subtlety residing in the composition of the image.

Also, because the photographer is looking at an image that is within arm's reach (for both the groundglass and the electronic display) he is further separated from the external world. The fact that this image is physically close to the photographer causes his eyes to accommodate, or focus closer, on this nearby object. That may not seem like much of a consideration, but the brain interprets what it sees substantially based on this level of accommodation. Certain powerful optical illusions (like the "moon illusion") depend heavily upon the degree to which the eye's lens is focused. Looking at an absolutely identical image at close range is perceptually very different than seeing the original scene at a distance. This effect can further abstract the image for the photographer.

These abstracting aspects of the electronic display– the new "groundglass"– have revolutionized my own approach to this art. Once I became connected to the immediate ability to hold in my own hands a replica of the final photograph– before it had even been taken– I couldn't imagine ever going back to the "dark ages" of shoot-and-hope.

The Editor's Knife

Photography, for the most part, is not an art based on creation ex nihilo, out of the void, but it relies instead on working with something that came before– something that already exists.  Down at the very ground level the photographer's task is that of an editor. The ever present questions before the photographer are— "what do I leave out of the image?" and "what do I incorporate into the image?"

The media– the raw materials and components– from which the photographic artist composes her "work" is the physical universe itself. The environment, the surroundings, the ambience in which she is immersed is the canvas and pallette and pigments that she will use to paint her creations. But maybe more to the point, and a better analogy perhaps, is to liken the photographer to a sculptor, whose work it is to take an existing mass of stone, imagine within it the art she desires to express, and then cut away everything from outside that does not match that artistic vision.

Unfinished Slave ("Blockhead Slave")
by Michelangelo Buonarroti,
housed in the Accademia in Florence

Near the top of nearly everyone's lists of remarkable artists is the Italian sculptor (and painter and poet and architect and engineer) Michelangelo Buonarroti. His work is extraordinary not only because of the virtuosic technical skill he enjoyed, but maybe even more so because of his profound and penetrating grasp of the creative purpose and process. One of his enduring perspectives on this process is his statement that the most significant sculpting is about understanding the art– the figure– that already exists within the physical stone. He wrote:

"In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it."

According to Michelangelo the sculptor must strive to see the figure hidden within the stone, and in the same way the photographer must work to see the image that lies beyond a surface view of the world. And then, just as the sculptor must be an editor of rock, chiseling off, chipping away, and grinding down the original raw surfaces, the photographer must be at work selecting a specific place to shoot, a unique direction to aim the lens, a singular cropping for the final print. The decisions to be made by the photographer are manifold, and laying out the whole spectrum of them deserves an article of its own.

It mostly comes down to the need to use the "knife." The photographer must cut keenly between what exists in the physical universe that belongs in his image, and what does not. There is an infinite amount of material that must be eliminated from the potential image, with only a trace– just a whiff– of the universe left. Ruthless decisions must be made. It's either in or it's out.

A Knife That Cannot Cut

A knife, that cuts, is a valuable and appreciated practical implement, and has been for millennia. A knife that cuts, and cuts extremely well, is treasured as a craft taken to the level of art. And a knife that isn't even useful for the purpose of cutting, but has been totally infused and transformed by pure imagination, can become sought after as a royal treasure and symbol of sheer power and authority.

Business end of Karamojong
spear (about 6 inches)

A friend and I were recently discussing the interrelationship between functionalism and art. I was describing for him some African weapons I possess– a nine-foot spear in particular– that are so beautifully and expertly made, with so little resources available, that they are surely wondrous examples of functional art. The function of these weapons (to intimidate and to kill) has so directed their design and fabrication that a spare and elegant aesthetic has floated to their surface.

The combination of dark steel head and tail (glinting with silver highlights where worn and polished), with amber wooden shaft and hard rawhide edge sheath is a study in contrasting materials. The tapering steel tail is perfectly balanced visually with the curving razor edges of the point. And the art to be appreciated in this spear is not visual only.

Joinery of hand-forged steel
socket and wooden shaft, secured
with hot-melt animal glue

The heft of the spear's mass is satisfying but surprisingly light. The balance is exceptional as gripping the wooden shaft in its center so verifies. The feel of the wooden shaft is incredibly smooth, yet it is hard to imagine it slipping out of the hand, as the diameter perfectly suits the encircling fingers and palm. Shaking the spear activates the weapon system's substantial flexibility and toughness. This is a sculptural work of the highest order. And it can defend and disseminate justice to boot.

North American scraping knife
and simple arrow point,
(circa 18-19th century?)

This kind of art sprouts out of the ground of necessity, but when taken to its final conclusion becomes art of yet another level. I spoke to my friend about another colleague who had become enthralled with amateur archeology. Along the way, he began learning the art of flint knapping– the skill of percussively flaking and shaping a chunk of hard, brittle stone into a useful, sharp-edged tool. This is the craft utilized in the making of stone arrowheads. I once borrowed from him some magazines devoted to the modern revival of this art. On the cover of one of these journals was the photograph of something the likes of which I had not only never seen before, but never even imagined was possible.

A gentleman was holding up a large (10-12 inches long) stone object that apparently had been recently made by himself. As I looked at it closely, it was clear that the object had been made by some flint-knapping technique. But, Oh, WHAT technique! <<Note: I have searched for a photo of this creation but come up empty, so it is not represented here.>>

"Tiny" piece of the Mandlebrot
fractal set

The stone piece was some kind of "knife," but I use the term "knife" with definite reservation, as this "knife" could never be used to actually cut something. Instead of a smooth, continuous and gently curving blade, there was a "blade" that had been totally interrupted by curves within curves within curves. The "edge" had the overall effect of something akin to the Mandelbrot "fractal" set. The detail and complexity of the edge alone nearly took my breath away. And how could something like this possibly be made by the difficult-to-control process of breaking rocks? It seemed close to impossible for a human being to actually make something like this– let alone conceive it in the first place.

Some years after seeing this astounding piece of art, I came across what was probably the inspiration for such a work. There are many (dozens, maybe hundreds) of examples of Mayan archeological artifacts that have been referred to as "eccentric flints." These objects are knife-like flint-knapped ornaments (I hesitate to call them tools) that almost defie description. Many of them possess the same doubly (or even triply) detailed edges like a fractal pattern. One of the most interesting I have come across is in the possession of the Dallas Museum of Art.

CROCODILE CANOE WITH PASSENGERS, eccentric flint
© Dallas Museum of Art

This piece is referred to as "Crocodile Canoe With Passengers." The work displays a known Mayan creation myth wherein the first beings ride into existence in a canoe formed from a crocodile-god (presumably, the Milky Way). Knowing some of the highly skilled processes necessary, I cannot even imagine how the artist first approached the creation of this piece centuries ago. And how many attempts were either fatally flawed or even totally destroyed before completing the example the Museum now has? What kind of high-flying imagination and optimism did it take to think that such a thing was even possible?

This kind of art has totally transcended any notion of functionalism. These flints were most probably prized by kings and priests as representative and declarative of their positions of power. These were treasures no longer useful for the practical purpose of cutting something, but instead, were so highly valued simply because they were so rare, so beautiful, and so improbable. The extraordinary difficulty of making such a piece guaranteed that it possessed some power of its own, and perhaps could even bestow some of that power upon its owner.

This brings us back to a central question of "why art?" Perhaps part of our appreciation of and desire to own art is that we, too, desire to somehow have "rub off" on us the power of the art that we so admire– that somehow the beauty and attraction of art can become our own personal attributes as well.

E. O. Goldbeck– The Final Frontier (Part 4)

E. O. Goldbeck led a remarkable life in so many different ways. He left a legacy of art, invention, pioneering, entrepreneurship, service, and family. On top of these numerous successes he lived a good long life of nearly a century. He almost had to have lived this long (94 years) in order to pack in so much.

I mentioned previously that I had obtained a signed and numbered copy of "The Panoramic Photography of Eugene O. Goldbeck." The fact that Goldbeck had signed this book just shortly before he died caused me to investigate the circumstances of his death. Online I was able to find the obituary that had appeared locally. As is customary, the obit recorded the details of his funeral and ultimate burial.

I was intrigued that his burial plot was located in Mission Burial Park South– near the San Antonio River and not more than a mile or so from the place I was mainly working at that time. I made plans to take an hour or so to pay a visit to Mission Park South, and attempt to locate his gravesite.

Driving in the cemetary's entrance, I stopped at the office and eventually found the folks who could help me out. I spoke with one of the ladys in the office and told her whose grave I wanted to locate. She entered the name into her computer and instantly had the plot's ID and location. She then circled a spot on a small xeroxed map of the pertinent section of the cemetary and handed it to me. After she gave me simple directions for driving to the section, I thanked her for her help and left the office. I could hardly believe how simple and quick this had been.

After driving for some distance (Mission Park South is quite extensive) I located the section and the approximate location of the Goldbeck family plot. I parked my car, gathered my photo equipment, and then made my search on foot for the gravesite. About fifty feet or so from the road, I saw before me a dark gray granite, upright simple memorial with the Goldbeck family name engraved prominently on it. I had found Goldbeck's "resting place."

Eugene and Marcella Goldbeck's burial plot, © Bill Brockmeier, 2010, all rights reserved by the artist

Next to the family marker was a flat granite rectangular stone, level with the ground, and engraved—

"Our Dear Dad

Eugene Omar Goldbeck

Nov 4, 1892—October 26, 1986."

Next to Gene's grave was that of his longtime wife, Marcella (interestingly, my own wife's middle name). Marcella lived an even longer life than Gene– attaining the age of 97 years. In the adjacent row were markers for some of their children who had preceded them in exiting this existence.

So– here lies the great, inventive master of panoramic photography himself. I thought out loud– "What could be more fitting than to compose a panoramic photograph of his gravesite?" I believe that Gene himself would have concurred heartily.

I assembled my gear and composed several different panoramic shots over the next hour or so. As I was setting up each one, I wondered how Gene might have approached such a challenge. Perhaps he would build a 200 foot tall tower and photograph the entire west section of the cemetary, including 2500 individual graves visible in a single photograph.

I finished my photographic exploration of the Goldbeck family plot and put away my equipment. Before I headed back to my vehicle, I thanked God for this man who so enjoyed stretching the limits of the photographic arts. What an example for myself.

Homage To "A Crazy Man," © Bill Brockmeier, 2010, all rights reserved by the artist

A final note– you'll notice my title to the image just above: "Homage To 'A Crazy Man.'"  This may seem a bit cryptic to you, but is a reference to Goldbeck's summary of himself: "You'd have to be a crazy man to do what I do." And superimposed on Gene's grave is my own shadow as I composed the shot, emulating a fairly famous photograph of him (below) waving his arms wildly as he enthusiastically directed a composition.

E. O. Goldbeck Directs a Shot
(authorship unknown)

The Grasshopper and the Gardner (Part 3)

Ralph and Laurie Cordero have been dear friends for well over a decade. Ralph is a talented photographer, and the two have appreciated the art of E. O. Goldbeck for even longer than myself, so I thought it would be of interest to interview Laurie about her experience of meeting the man and about his art.

_______________________________________

Bill:
Laurie, I've been exploring some of the uniqueness of Goldbeck's art here on the Revealing Light Photography blog . You actually met Goldbeck many years ago– what were the circumstances of your first contact with him?

Laurie:
Around 1985 I was at an art and photography shop near downtown San Antonio, Texas. While I was there this spry old man in his 70s (turns out it was Goldbeck) came into the shop and the owner tells him he needs to sign a pile of photographs. When he was done she told him "Here's another one.." and then "here's another one..." and "here's another one." She kept putting them in front of him and he kept signing them. I don't think either one of them was keeping track of how many he was signing. I don't think she was even paying him for signing them. It was obvious to me that he was really interested in the photography itself, and he wasn't really interested in the money.

When he was finally finished signing the photographs he left the shop and got into his little blue Dodge Dart (or whatever it was) that was parallel-parked in front of the shop. It was obvious that the cars in front and in back of him were way too close for him to get out– but that wasn't a problem for him. He just banged! into the car in front of him and then banged! into the car in back and then banged! into the car in front again, until he had enough space and then he just pulled out and drove off– just as happy-go-lucky as he could be!

Bill:
You mentioned that this took place about 1985- since he was born in 1891 or '92 that would have made Goldbeck about 93 or 94 years old at the time.

Laurie:
Are you serious?! He sure didn't look it...I would have guessed he was in his 70s! That's amazing! He was the fastest moving "grasshopper" you ever saw!

Bill:
So how did you end up meeting him a second time?

Laurie:
Well, it just made me mad that the shop didn't seem to be paying him for his signature, so I thought I'd try to call his studio and buy some photographs directly from him. I looked the phone number up for his studio and called him up. I said I was interested in getting some of his work and he said: "Well just come on over to my house!"

He lived down in the "King William district" (of San Antonio). His house was a big old colonial style place, built pretty high off the ground with a flight of steps going up to the front door. I knocked on the door and he came to the door and said: "Yeah...come on back to my studio and I'll show you a bunch of pictures."

He was just so happy and personable– he was just the sweetest thing! But once he took off from that front door through his house, he was running! I'm telling you what– it was everything I could do just to keep up with him! His studio was behind the house, so he ran down the flight of stairs in back of the house, and then ran up two flights of stairs to the upstairs studio. He was taking those steps two and three at a time, and never slowed down-- he was flying! After the first flight of stairs going up, I was huffin' and puffin,' but he was just all chipper and talking a mile a minute. I've never seen anything like it. He was so full of life!

Goldbeck just loved photography and loved life. He wasn't in it for the money, he was just in it for the photography. He just loved it!

We got up to his studio, which was plain and simple, and it was absolutely filled with piles and piles of photographs. He showed me photos of this and that– he' d been all over the world– you'd think he might have been kind of prideful of all that he'd done, but he was just as personable as you could imagine. He just wanted to take me around the world by showing me his pictures. He was just full of life.

Bill:
So, did you end up buying some of his work?

Laurie:
Yes, I bought a "bathing beauty" shot for my Dad, one of the Alamo for Ralph, and one of the Big Bend area.

ALAMO PLAZA, 1916, San Antonio, Texas, © E. O. Goldbeck, 1916, all rights reserved
(green rectangle highlights detail of gardner shown below)

Bill:
Didn't you once mention to me that Goldbeck told you an interesting story about the Alamo photograph you have?

Laurie:

detail of Goldbeck's ALAMO PLAZA, 1916,
showing gardner in hat tending landscaping
© E. O. Goldbeck, 1916, all rights reserved

Yes he did. He said that he took numerous shots of Alamo Plaza from the building across the street, about once every ten years to record how the Alamo and things around it were changing. But he said that although these photographs spanned several decades, he got to noticing that a gardner, wearing a hat, showed up in every one of them, tending the flower beds and such. He showed me every one of them and there was the gardner in each one. In one of them he was kind of working and moving– and kind of blurred due to his activity. In another one he was down in a corner of the photo. But in each one, there he was!

Bill:
Was this always the same gardner?

Laurie:
That's what he implied.

Bill:
What do you appreciate about Goldbeck's work in general?

Laurie:
It's all about life. And he was all about life– he had a fullness of life, he had a love of life, and it came out in his photography. He loved people, he loved landscape, he loved architecture. He loved the changing scene around the Alamo– he loved the new and the old. He wasn't stuck in one era or one thing. He loved all of it. And he had definitely discovered the "Fountain of Youth!"

Men At Work (Part 2)

E. O. Goldbeck assembled thousands of human subjects to paint truly monumental insignias upon the Texas landscape. This was a unique achievement but it wasn't the only enduring mark Goldbeck left on the history of the photographic arts. He has probably been most known for his singular and signature capture of American men and women at work.

Goldbeck cut his panoramic teeth in his recording of the extent of the WWI American military. He developed his techniques while capturing their personal and corporate portraits as they were surrounded by and immersed in their considerable tools and hardware: tents, buildings, trucks, tanks, and planes. Goldbeck's underlying motif in this corporate portraiture was to use the work environment itself as the setting– even the canvas– on which he would "paint."

"Goldbeck," curated by Bolognesi and Bernado

In 1998 The University of Texas (the final repository of Goldbeck's extensive catalogue of photographs) collaborated with Bolognesi and Bernado to curate a large retrospective exhibition of Goldbeck's work for Actar in Barcelona. An extensive selection of photos from the exhibition was ultimately published as a book, titled simply: "Goldbeck."

The book is not only a wonderful introduction to Goldbeck's work, but it is a unique view into the lives of American workers of the early twentieth century. Though for decades scores of very talented photographers have attempted to capture the working man and his worth to society, Goldbeck is one of the very few that has been able to properly and completely place his subject within the workplace itself. Only his unusual method of panoramic photography has a wide enough field of view to capture the full scope of the working ambience.

These explorations of the workingman's world that especially fascinated me were Goldbeck's images of the Holsum Bread delivery men, the U.S. Army Quartermaster shoe shop, the Postal Union Messengers, and the preachers baptizing believers in the San Pedro springs before thousands of onlookers.

MESSENGER FORCE, © E. O. Goldbeck, 1929

Though not recorded in this book (or the other two that have been compiled), one of the most unusual instances of Goldbeck's portraits of working men was actually a fortuitous accident. Or I should say a string of fortuitous accidents. The story was related by Goldbeck himself to a long time friend of mine. My interview with her concerning this previously untold Goldbeck story will appear in my next post.

______________________________________________________

A bibliography of books on Goldbeck's life and images:

• "Goldbeck," curated by Kitti Bolognesi and Jordi Bernado, 1999, ACTAR, Barcelona.
• "The Panoramic Photography of Eugene O. Goldbeck," Clyde Burleson and Jessica Hickman, 1986, Texas University Press, Austin. 
• "The Unpretentious Pose. The Work of E. O. Goldbeck," Marguerite Davenport, 1981, Trinity University Press, San Antonio. 

This past year I was fortunate enough to locate a pristine, numbered and signed (3 of 100) special edition of Burleson and Hickman's work published by Texas University Press. These books are Goldbeck's very last signed work, as he died shortly before the book had reached the public. It is a wonderful book delving into the details of Goldbeck's extensive life (he lived to a few years short of a century) and contains many of his most iconic panoramic photographs, most of which are reproduced in nearly the original size.