Re: history

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From: Carl Weese (cweese@earthlink.net)
Date: 08/19/02-09:00:39 AM Z


Judy,

Well, EW also wasn't above trying to create his own myths. The Daybooks
are a great read, but multiple grains of salt should be kept handy on
the excursion.

Here's one that he did to himself,

"I start with no preconceived idea--
discovery excietes me to focus--
then rediscovery throught the lens--
final form of presentation seen on ground glass, the finished print
previsioned complete in every detail of texture, movement, proportion,
before exposure--
the shutter's release automatically and finally fixes my conception,
allowing no after-manipulation--

OK. Now, from this comes the myth of the "straight print", the idea that
he never burned or dodged his prints (and watch out, I'm going to start
using M-dashes all over, always do after reading EW).
Thing is, this was 1930, and the "manipulation" Edward is foreswearing
in all this fancy talk is retouching (he was a master at negative
retouching because of his portrait business, but of course hated doing
it) and negative scratching and hand-working of an image: all the
photo-sessision repetoire. He would no more have considered local
contrast control (burning and dodging) an "after-manipulation" than
deciding to develop the negative longer than usual because the light was
flat. But now for 72 years people have been stuck with the myth of the
straight print, which if nothing else made it an awful lot harder to
figure out how he really worked.

---Carl

Judy Seigel wrote:
>
> On Sun, 18 Aug 2002, Carl Weese wrote:
>
> >
> > > I believe "incorrect myth" is a tautology.
>
> > I
> > think there are a lot of these red herring, incorrect myths about Weston. I
> > grant the term is inelegant though, and will see about thinking up a
> > replacement.
>
> So I checked my 1932 dictionary, which I like because it's small enough to
> lift & the type large enough to read. One definition for myth is "a person
> or thing whose existence is imaginary or not verifiable." Which I take for
> the sense in which it was used, probably accounting for my sense of
> redundancy. Theoretically I suppose there could be a correct myth, but
> that would probably be better called history, tale, character sketch,
> chronicle, record, yarn, anecdote, or other term from any of the 19
> subtopics under "Description" in Roget's.
>
> Meanwhile, going down the page I scan section .5 ..."History -- a set of
> lies agreed upon. [Napoleon]." Isn't this what we're talking about? How
> much Westoniana is really true, a mere generation after his death?
> History of photography of just the last 20 years has already gone weird...
>
> cheers,
>
> Judy

-- 
Web Site with picture galleries and workshop information
http://home.earthlink.net/~cweese/index.html

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