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. 

Genesis Moment

It is incredibly faint– ghostlike. Moving your gaze about in the dim shrine, you occasionally catch a glimpse of something long gone. Attempting to refocus, you strain your eyes to see something that might not even be there. A certain patience is required to see something so rare as this...

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Estate at Le Gras
Support the Nicéphore Niépce House–
© Spéos

Nearly two centuries ago in rural France, Nicéphore (Joseph) Niépce climbed the stairs in the early morning hours into the second story of his family's country estate and set up a scientific experiment, the likes of which the world had never before seen, and which would change the world forever. Just inside the window, he set up a camera obscura consisting of an imaging lens mounted on a wooden box, with a special pewter plate at the rear. He had previously coated the plate with a thin layer of a unique material– bitumen of Judea dissolved in oil of lavender. After carefully focusing the lens, he could easily see on the pewter plate the upside-down, lit image of the roof and farm buildings outside the window.

Nicéphore had previously experimented with such photo-sensitive plates in his successful attempts to reproduce graphical materials (mainly artistic engravings) through the use of light imaged through a lens. Wherever the brightest light of an image struck the special coating on the plate, the bitumen became solid and permanent, forming a long-lasting material image. Now, he sought to reproduce not just simple graphics, but the physical, natural world itself through the medium of light. What an audacious dream– to reproduce what the world looked like, through the agency of nature itself, and without the intervention of an artist's skill and tools! Could such an enterprise be possible? It seemed too good to be true.

Satisfied that the focused image was as clear as possible, he settled back on a wooden chair and girded up his patience, knowing that this would take the entire day. As he waited, the brilliantly sunlit scene outside poured its photonic energy through the window. The scrambled beams of light were precisely redirected and reordered as they pushed their way through the glass lens, finally impinging upon the sensitive surface of the polished metal plate.

Nicéphore continued waiting, eating his lunch while the sun rose high in the French-blue sky overhead. The foreshortened shadows on the ground eventually began to lengthen, and still the photons in the image were building up a physical, material image on the plate. Thin layer upon thin layer of solid, permanent bitumen were formed in the brightest regions of the image.

Hungry again as the sun descended in the west, he supped on bread and sipped on wine, waiting the fullest extent of time for the image that was developing on his plate. Finally, the sun sank below the horizon and he removed the plate from the rear of the box. Working in the dim, golden light of a few oil lamps, he carefully rinsed the surface of the plate with more oil of lavender, hoping to see a real, physical image on the substrate.

He dried the remaining solvent and then examined the plate in the light of the lamps. At first, the metal surface seemed as it had before– simply a shiny gray, metallic gleam. But as he turned and tilted it in the light, something finally caught his eye...was that an image? He couldn't quite decipher what he was looking at until he turned the plate 180°– he had been looking at it upside down, forgetting that the projected image on the plate had been inverted!

Having now seen something that the world outside had not yet imagined,  Nicéphore set himself to refining his process. He began collaborating with Louis Daguerre, who would ultimately stand in the spotlight of public celebrity as the pioneer of photography. Nicéphore Joseph Niépce eventually receded into obscurity, remembered by only a handful who appreciated his foundational role in the invention.

His original photographic plate, containing the image of the estate at Le Gras was given to an admiring botanist and artist in England, Mr. Francis Bauer. Bauer wrote a detailed description on the back of the photograph in both French and English, proclaiming it to be the first artifice "...fixing permanently the image from Nature."

In the mid-twentieth century Niépce had been generally acknowledged as the inventor of photography, although there was no known physical evidence of this work. But Helmut Gernsheim, photographer and photographic historian and collector, and his wife Alison, devoted three years to researching and tracking down such evidence– if it still existed. Tantalizing, obscure references in the literature beckoned them to press on in the pursuit. Through hard work and perseverance they would track the possession of this treasure through at least a half-dozen separate individuals who had owned it through the period of more than a century.

Niépce's "View From the Window at Le Gras"
©, Harry Ransom Center and J. Paul Getty Museum

In February 1952, the culmination of their search took them to the final owner, a Mrs. Pritchard of London, England. Although her family had previously expressed to Gernsheim that the plate had been stolen or otherwise permanently lost from them, it had recently been rediscovered. The long sought image had been found in a dusty old trunk beneath "old clothes, books, and other family relics." A meeting between Mrs. Pritchard and the Gernsheims was at last arranged and they would have the opportunity to see it with their own eyes. As Mrs. Pritchard handed the ornately framed article to Helmut, she expressed her dismay that the image had totally faded away. Looking at the back, he first noticed the clearly worded description of the transaction of this item from Niépce to Bauer. Turning it over, he saw what appeared to be simply a dark, polished metallic plate. But where was the photographic image?

Just as Niépce had done more than a century before, he turned and tilted the plate in the light streaming through the window, until he finally began to see what was there– an image of the country estate at Le Gras, outside the upper floor window. His heart pounded as he realized the fruition of his quest.

Sometime later, the plate passed into his own possession, and eventually into the archives of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, a part of the University of Texas at Austin. The "First Photograph" is currently and permanently on display in the lobby of the Harry Ransom Center.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The First Photograph Shrine,
in the lobby of the Harry Ransom Center

If you possess a serious interest in photography (or the arts and communication in general), and you find yourself in the vicinity of central Texas you should seriously consider a pilgrimage to the Harry Ransom Center in Austin. The Center, itself, is reason enough to visit the area but the "First Photograph" makes it mandatory. This relic is simply the Holy Grail of photography. Like viewing the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution in the National Archives, this is a unique and memorable experience.

As I reflected in the opening lines of this post, the image is difficult to see and at first glance it appears to be nothing more than a mirror. However, your patience will be rewarded as you find the proper angle to observe it, and Niépce's family estate at Le Gras reveals itself once again. A photograph of this photograph (as can be seen above in the Getty photo) is always less than satisfying, and it can only truly be seen in person. This is an experience that should not be missed.

one of only five complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible
in the United States, Harry Ransom Center lobby

While you are in the lobby of the Center you can view another amazing genesis of modern communication– one of the very few existing complete copies of Gutenberg's printed Bible. This was where printing, as we know it, began so many centuries ago. To see these two incredible inventions in the same room at the same time is a priceless experience.

Finally, read the details of the amazing journey that Helmut and Alison Gernsheim took to rediscover the "First Photograph,"

and discover for yourself the intriguing new finds at Niépce's family estate (and now a photographic museum) in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France.

Photographic Purity– (B&W vs Color)

In my previous post I mentioned that the basis for photography was producing "an analog of what the original subject 'looked like.'" That thought was a kind of off-the-cuff remark, but thinking about it again, I believe it now even more strongly. It is significant that a photograph is aimed not at simply reproducing a physical duplicate of the original, but, rather, in producing (or re-producing) a human perception ("...looked like"). The photographer may be interested in reproducing/conveying whatever her own human perception was of the subject at the time, or she may be interested in producing a particular and wholly new internal perception in the mind of the photograph's viewer (or both).

I believe this matter sets photography apart as an art, rather than as simply a science. There certainly is a place for photography's use as something closer to a science when it is used more simply as a documentary device. In my own work as an optical engineer, I sometimes use photography to purely document the external surface state of a material sample after it has been exposed to laser radiation. And its use in medical and forensic science to document both simple and complex systems and circumstances is invaluable. Even photo-journalism uses something of this documentary power of photography, but in this case, it is equally used to form a perception in the viewer and persuade.

When photography began, it's aim was an image that was composed of light and dark areas, to represent the light and dark areas that were seen in the original subject. This light/dark nature lacked any reference to the original colors in the subject– it was what we now call B/W ("black and white") photography. In this infancy of photography there was not much thought given to what the original colors might have been. At that time the only pigment available on the photographic artist's pallet was a single, simple stick of charcoal. Colors were not what mattered; only values mattered. These early innovators of photography probably never even imagined that photography would someday capture colors as well as values.

Today, there are very few people alive who can remember a time when there were only B/W photographs. And the days of choosing between an inexpensive B/W television and an expensive color unit are decades in the past. In this day, B/W photography is seen as sort of an avant-garde artistic technique, rather than the primitive progenitor of modern photography. B/W is now seen more often than not for its substantial artistic possibilities rather than as an older and cheaper form of photography. This is a good thing.

EARTH AND WATER, INTERWOVEN I, © Bill Brockmeier, all rights reserved

The considerable benefits that monochrome photography brings to the art are wide in spectrum and deep in subtlety– far too great to exhaust in this short article. However, I must at least mention its unique ability to bring the form and structure of an image's composition into clear focus. In some respect, it can offer also distinct abstract qualities to an image, somewhat distancing the observer from the original scene, and thereby bringing them into a closer interaction with their own (or the photographer's) thoughts, impressions, and emotions about the image.

With only tonal values present in the image, color can no longer distract the viewer from the image's underlying structure. This monochromatic vision is a very foreign way of seeing, and usually only experienced under extremely low light level conditions. Perhaps it is this foreign nature of the experience that helps us to see in more than a simply natural and commonplace way. Geometric interplay between various forms and shapes in the image can become paramount. Light and dark, airiness and weight, levity and gravity sing and dance a duet.

It is strange to think that in limiting our ability to see– by removing all color information– we can see things that may have been invisible before.

Of course the final irony in the whole thing is that B/W photography is not truly monochromatic. The white in a B/W image is what a physicist would refer to as "broadband" or "full spectrum" light. This is light that is composed, not of a single wavelength (color) of light, but, rather, of all wavelengths/colors. And even in the original capture of the image, all colors (not just one) came together to produce the image. Truly, "less is more" and "more is less."