Unknown Photographer, “Untitled, (Bear, Port Arthur”), n.d. Kodak No.1

#somereallygoodones, #kodak1, #unknownphotographer, #bear, #circularprint, #vernacular, #clementcheroux, #wernerkuhl, #familiar

Clement Cheroux, former director of photography of the MoMA recounts a story how as a student of photography he failed to recognize a photographer favored by Walker Evans, “Werner Kuhler”.*1 Vernacular — got it? — photography is amateur or found work, usually unauthored, photographer unknown or anonymous. I have never liked the word, vernacular, much. It was appropriated from conversations about architecture. I think photography should have its own word. I like familiar, as in easily recognizable or from the family.

Collecting these little beauties has become its own specialty, mostly buying candids made after the 1940s. Looking further back to the origins of amateur photography, you come upon the Kodak (No. 1) invented by George Eastman (1854-1932). It was a simple, leather-covered wooden box that was light and could be handheld. “You press the button, we do the rest” went the pitch. The No. 1 produced circular snapshots, two and a half inches in diameter. You took your pictures and sent the camera with the exposed film back to Kodak. They reloaded it for you and sent you your set of prints too.

Here we have a chained, possibly trained bear, posed dramatically on a stool next to a brick wall. The photographer was trying to achieve some sort of effect it would seem. Who knows? The back of the print — the verso — has “Bear, Port Arthur” in pencil. All in all a fine mystery.

Perfect circles, no edges. What a wondrous way of seeing. It made photography a bit like spying through a keyhole or a scope and created a new dynamic between people: photographer and subject — sometimes bears — often but not always other people.

These. are like thought bubbles, intimate nuggets of surprise and information offering a fresh way of seeing. (Even the cloud to the left of the bear looks to be a thought bubble.)

The launch of Kodak No. 1 was like Goethe’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” opening a sluice and undamming a flood of images.

Photography gave us the ability to capture time, an overwhelming consideration, writing us a new destiny with light.

*1 “Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography” p. 12 (Steidl The Walther Collection 2020)

These posts are from my new project “Great Photographs …or, at least, Some Really Good Ones”. Photo, text, and some times, audio or video.

#somereallygoodones, #theunseeneye, #wmhunt, #collectiondancingbear, #collectionblindpirate, #greatphotographs, #howilookatphotographs, #photographsfromtheunconsicous, #sansregard, #aperture, #thames&hudson, #actesud, #collectingislikerunningaroundinathunderstorm hopingyoullbehitbylightning, #aphotographsogooditmakesyoufartlightning, #photographychangeditlifeitgavemeone, #kodak1, #unknownphotographer, #circularprint, #vernacular, #clementcheroux, #wernerkuhl, #familiar