[HN Gopher] Help Identify the Photographer Who Captured Many Ima...
___________________________________________________________________
Help Identify the Photographer Who Captured Many Images of 1960s
San Francisco
Author : gnabgib
Score : 100 points
Date : 2025-03-17 21:08 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Sometimes, these questions are best left unanswered, and the
| objects, divorced from their creator...
|
| I recall at one of my schools there was much fanfare about
| several boxes of slides found during renovations in the early
| 90s, of life in and around the school during the 50s and 60s.
| Fantastic photographs, from what I recall.
|
| Anyway. They did an exhibition, creator unknown... and one of the
| teachers from the era came by. He immediately knew whose photos
| they were - a master from the time who had been rumoured to have
| been having an affair with a boy, and ensuingly shot his wife and
| himself. Back then, as when I was there, masters quite commonly
| lived in cottages, if married, or apartments at the school, some
| of which had become classrooms by my day.
|
| The identity of the photographer immediately clouded the lens
| through which his work has been seen, as people suddenly thought
| to ask questions like "yes, why was there someone with a camera
| when the boys were dressing for school?"
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| Strikes me as quite a positive thing that the romance was
| removed from this situation.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's interesting how we always take pictures of the wrong things.
| The treasure of this collection is he took pictures of things
| that other photographers thought were uninteresting.
|
| Like everyone takes pictures of Disneyland. But who takes random
| street scene photos?
|
| Once around 1988 or so my dad and I just drove around running his
| video camera. It's interesting now as the there's been enormous
| change. I wish I'd done this in downtown Seattle, as it has all
| been redeveloped. The old Seattle is gone.
| spinningarrow wrote:
| > But who takes random street scene photos?
|
| What do you mean? This is exactly what street photographers do.
| tetris11 wrote:
| > "But what significant portion of the public tend to take
| photos of everyday mundane things, barring those with
| artistic intrigue already in mind"
| spinningarrow wrote:
| Sorry, where are you quoting from? I can't find that in the
| comment I replied to or in the original article.
| tetris11 wrote:
| An inability to extrapolate the general intent of
| someone's statement in good faith is often an omen for a
| needlessly entrenched discussion.
| inkcapmushroom wrote:
| That's not how quotes work.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| If you're paraphrasing or reinterpreting, don't use quote
| marks.
| williamdclt wrote:
| > he took pictures of things that other photographers thought
| were uninteresting. [...] who takes random street scene photos?
|
| I could be wrong but I feel photographing the mundane is very
| common, something that's discussed a whole lot in photography
| and probably one of the main things discussed and taught in
| photography courses.
|
| Doesn't mean it's the majority of photos taken of course, and a
| lot of it probably stays uninteresting as art and as
| documentation, but it's hardly a niche thing!
|
| Even in painting, representing the mundane has been a big
| subject for hundreds of years (eg Lowry in modern times)
| WalterBright wrote:
| If it's very common, why are these mundane SF pictures so
| rare?
| bbarnett wrote:
| The missing piece, is that film was expensive, and few
| carried cameras around with them.
|
| Unless you were on vacation, or going to a memorable event,
| it was rare for a person to have a camera on them in the
| 60s. They didn't easily fit in pocket. And rarer still for
| someone to spend a few bucks taking photos of unimportant
| things.
|
| (Film _and_ development costs both were not cheap in the
| 60s)
|
| Most people only had 15 or 20 shots in their cheap camera,
| and wanted to save them for the party or event.
|
| It's not like there were endless professional photographers
| wandering around.
| baq wrote:
| > But who takes random street scene photos?
|
| May I introduce you to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_photography
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That "James at 13" photo shows just how fun it was to be a 70's
| kid. And those banana-seat (free style?) bikes were the
| pinnacle of kid's bike designs.
|
| Am I showing my age much?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The banana seat bikes looked cool, but from a biomechanical
| perspective were inefficient to pedal. They were pretty
| tiring to pedal a significant distance.
| noizejoy wrote:
| > ... looked cool, but from a biomechanical perspective
| were inefficient to pedal. They were pretty tiring to pedal
| a significant distance.
|
| You simply had to take a few longer breaks when going on
| longer distance trips to re-charge your muscles. ;-)
| unwind wrote:
| Very cool, also amazing that someone did all the work of taking
| and collecting and storing the material and not accidentally,
| like, label a roll of film or a print or something.
|
| I found it mildly amusing in a meta sort of way that the article
| about a collection of photos by an unknown photographer features
| a bunch of the photos, while crediting them to the current owner
| of the collection (Bill Delzell).
|
| I _understand_ that in a way he provided the image, so in that
| sense he is the source, but that 's not being made clear in the
| captions.
| joeeverjk wrote:
| Crazy how this feels like finding a dead man's hard drive full of
| gold--thousands of shots while today's "street photographers" beg
| for likes. Honestly, part of me hopes no one claims it. Feels
| cleaner that way--art for the sake of it, not some guy dropping a
| Netflix doc later.
| TheDong wrote:
| If they were taken in the 1960s by someone in their 30s who lived
| to 80, that means we probably have roughly another 60 years until
| these are free from copyright and you can actually publish them
| in a magazine.
|
| I'm surprised the magazine let them publish as much as they did,
| given the lack of concrete copyright provenance.
|
| Just think how many historical books and pieces of art and photos
| we could archive and sort and look at if copyright didn't last
| literally longer than a human's lifetime.
| Zealotux wrote:
| Wouldn't that be fair use? In any cases, if someone do claim
| copyright on that article then the case will be closed.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Seems like a fair strategy to locate the photographer: make
| money with their photos, and tada: they they are! Well, a few
| hundred claiming to be them.
| mapt wrote:
| Of course it would.
|
| Because copyright is a dystopian death-pact intended to serve
| as a deterrent, not a functional system of regulation. If
| copyright was strictly litigated by all aggrieved parties the
| damages would exceed the global annual GDP, every few minutes.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| The YouTube video in TFA has the following at around the ~4:50
| mark:
|
| > Important questions about ownership fair use and copyright
| need to be addressed
| madsbuch wrote:
| Based on the image with the reflection, the photographer is
| probably closer to 12 - so there is indeed a chance they are
| still alive.
|
| The meaning of copyright is changing as these images are being
| divorced from their physical medium.
|
| It can be read that the film was found and sold - a practice
| that was probably fine when an image had a physical
| manifestation.
|
| But yes, we are at juncture now with copyrights, as more and
| more things are virtual.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| I'm surprised you care that much about what the law says about
| Mickey Mouse. It's not for everyone.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I didn't take the OP's post as "caring about" the law so much
| as pointing out its absurdity.
| larrywright wrote:
| > The collection's 75 undeveloped rolls of Kodachrome film likely
| amount to about 2,700 photos
|
| I wonder how they're planning on developing that film, since the
| chemicals to develop Kodachrome haven't been available since
| 2010.
| ostacke wrote:
| And even with the chemicals, it's a notoriously convoluted
| process.
|
| But of course there's always someone who's done it in their
| garage[1].
|
| [1]: https://emulsive.org/articles/darkroom/developing-
| film/they-...
| shagie wrote:
| The chemicals aren't being made (sold) by Kodak anymore, but
| the chemicals are known and if you sat down with a chemical
| engineer you could brew up another batch. It certainly wouldn't
| be cheap, but it's not impossible.
|
| There've even been some DIY projects to develop some of the
| film.
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorspider/48558429727/in/ph...
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> the chemicals are known and if you sat down with a
| chemical engineer you could brew up another batch_
|
| Jesse, let's cook.
| buildbot wrote:
| There's at least one company that does kodachrome, but not in
| color: https://processonephoto.com/mail-order-film-
| processing.htm
| ciabattabread wrote:
| I thought we had already solved this mystery, but I was thinking
| of a different 1960's San Francisco photo archive discovery --
| the Kodachrome slides in a cabinet left on a street.[0]
|
| [0] https://sfmemory.org/TiffanyCabinet/
| wincy wrote:
| Hah yes I was also getting deja vu here. I spend too much time
| on HN I think.
| beautifulfreak wrote:
| Reminds me of the photos of Vivian Maier, discovered in a storage
| locker after her death. The documentary "Finding Vivian Maier"
| tells the story. Amazing photos! https://www.vivianmaier.com
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-03-21 23:02 UTC)