Two shots of the Gallery Place Metro station, looking down on the Red Line platform from the mezzanine. Taken with the Rolleiflex 2.8E, hand-held, with Portra 800. Exposure times were 1/2 second or 1 second @ f2.8.
Three shots of the light sculpture in operation, taken with the Rolleiflex, hand-held, using Kodak Portra 800. I thought it would make for a different take on the piece compared to the video (which was shot on my iPhone, thus the shakiness). The light sculpture has been set so that it will never in fact repeat itself exactly.
I added several addresses in the last few days, to all three maps. To New York, I added:
P.H. Rupp, 13 Avenue A
D. Appleton & Co, Cartes De Visite, A.A. Turner, Photographer, 443 & 445 Broadway
C. Henkel, 1288 Broadway
To Philadelphia, I’ve added:
Schreiber & Son, Photographers, 818 Arch Street
Photographed by Roberts, 808 Arch Street
Fitzgerald & Co, Photographers, 828 Arch Street
To Washington DC I’ve added:
R. W. Addis, Photographer, McClee’s Gallery 308 Pennsylvania Avenue
Tasset, Artist Photographer, 925 Pennsylvania Avenue
As per my usual practice, I’m including any advertising copy found on the photographers’ verso imprints along with the address.
For those who are too old (or too young!) to be aware of the video game, the above characters are from a video game series called “Street Fighter”. The series is immensely popular and has been around in some form or another since 1987. To me, they’re a little out of touch with the High Heel Race thing, as nobody in their group is actually in DRAG – it seems more like this was an excuse for them to wear their Halloween costumes one more time.
Until they got close enough to read their signs, I thought they were imitating the Carnival samba girls in their huge feather headpieces, just with balloons, as you could see their contingent from two blocks away.
And another pop-culture reference that may be lost on some – it’s Honey Boo-Boo and her Mama June, characters from a reality TV show about a trailer-trash child beauty pageant contestant and her dysfunctional family.
Here’s an anonymous CDV, labeled on the back “View of Patterson’s House, from the N. Yd” I take that to mean North Yard. It must have been an industrialists home, built on the grounds of the factory.
This is only the second architectural CDV I’ve found. I did some cleanup on the scan of the close-up to make it easier to view. If anyone has any idea where this is/was, I would greatly appreciate feedback. The cdv was purchased in south-west Virginia, near Staunton and Harrisonburg. This is perhaps the poorest condition CDV I own, as it has separated into its various components – the albumen print has separated from the card backing, which has separated into two separate, very thin and delicate layers. This is actually interesting because it gives you an insight into how these were assembled, and the various weights and qualities of the paper components. This is also the first CDV I have that the glass plate negative shows a crack in the print (note the lower left corner of the image). I’ve seen plenty of other larger wet collodion images shot on glass plate that show cracks, perhaps the most infamous one being Alexander Gardner’s last portrait of Abraham Lincoln where the plate cracked right through his head. But I’ve never seen a CDV sized image with a cracked plate. Either it just didn’t happen all that often, or the plates that did crack were re-shot and discarded, or both. In any case, this must have been a very important image to someone to have survived the damaged plate.
*ADDENDUM*
Patterson House was the home of one of the first commandants of the US Navy Yard in Washington DC. So N. Yd. stands for Navy Yard. This would also place the image in the 1860s, perhaps inter-war or possibly pre-war. Given the location, it is quite possible this image came from either the Brady or Gardner studios, or perhaps even Timothy O’Sullivan. It is impossible to say as there is no identifying imprint on the recto, and the original verso layer of the card is missing. Further research is merited. Because there is no imprint on the front, I would suspect Gardner over Brady, as Gardner did not print his name on the front of his CDVs, and he had a strong relationship with the US Military (he was the one called to photograph the Lincoln conspirators after their capture and incarceration aboard US Navy ironclads anchored at the Navy Yard and the subsequent execution, held a scant few blocks away on what is now the grounds of Fort McNair). So I may well have another Gardner image!
Three more in my DC at night series. These were all shot with the Canham 5×7 wood field, and if memory serves, all were taken with the Kodak 12″ Commercial Ektar lens.
Ok – I managed to get my FotoWeekDC portfolio contest entry submitted. With three hours to spare, give or take. I’m submitting nine images from my Colors of Night series. I finally got to take advantage of my (rather pricey) large format film holders for my scanner, and re-scanned some of my 5×7 negatives from San Francisco. I submitted 5 San Francisco and 4 Washington DC night shots. Fingers crossed, they’ll go over well.
For more information about FotoWeekDC – https://www.fotoweekdc.org
FotoWeekDC started about three years ago. It’s becoming a really big deal and drawing international attention to the photography scene here in DC.
These were all shot with my Rolleiflex shortly after I bought it. It’s a 2.8E model, from the 1950s, with the Planar lens. There certainly are limits to the fixed “normal” lens on the Rolleiflex, but working within those limits, it’s a beautiful camera that produces beautiful results. I’m very tempted to take it with me on a vacation as my sole camera and see what I can get with it. I like how compact it is and how unobtrusive, compared to say my Mamiya RB67. All images shot on Kodak Ektar 100.
I was able to kill two birds with one stone on this image – I found an Alexander Gardner CDV (which is rare in itself!) and an image nearly identical to a Mathew Brady version I had seen, but in better overall condition, for the same money as the Brady. So now I have two official Gardners.
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