Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/08/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 07:46 AM 25/08/97 -0600, you wrote: >I looked at it again, and am convinced that the negative in the photo is a >copy neg. Unless I am mistaken, 35mm film has always had sprocket holes on >either edge. The neg in the picture is lacking these. You will note, the >print from the neg is cropped at the very place that the big trouble spot >occurs on the photographed negative. the area begind the man and the hoop >shapes below him. It was my understanding that HCB was not much for cropping >his prints. If we are to believe this, then the negative in the photo must >be a copy. > You could be right. It would make sense to have a copy neg available for something so valuable. However, here is some background which may help someone to solve this. In the late '30s, HCB edited a great deal of his work, tossing many negatives of photos he had made earlier. He cut the keepers into individual frames. If you look carefully at the side of the negative which is missing the sprocket holes, it is slightly jagged, suggesting that someone may have cut off the sprocket holes on the top. Why someone would want to do this is beyond me, unless perhaps the intent was to remove any identification of the type of film used to make this photo. He was not fond of working in the darkroom. Technical manipulation was too far removed from the spontaneity and artistry of working with the camera. It could help to explain the developing problems in the negative. Someone should be able to find out if he had a darkroom assistant in '32, when the photo was shot. It is also well known that he had to poke his camera lens through an opening when he took this photo. He was incredibly lucky (and good) to get the shot. Perhaps the lens was partly obscured on one side, accounting for the strange appearance of the left side of the frame, as seen in the light table photo in this issue of American Photo. This might make sense, because it isn't like any kind of problem which would normally be experienced by a malfunctioning camera, as far as I can tell. - -GH