Digital BW, The Print

On Dec 23, 2005, KEN CARNEY WROTE::
>
> 	The "Migrant Mother" I downloaded was a grayscale 55mb tif, and
> appears to be a scan of the LF neg.  I just resized to 8x10, sharpened 
> in PK
> Sharpener, touched up the contrast a little and printed on Innova 
> natural
> white (Epson 2200/IP).  It looks great, better than my recollection of 
> the
> museum prints.  I'm pretty sure it is a scan of the original or copy 
> neg
> because, aside from the rebate border, the dust hasn't been retouched 
> and
> the thumb hasn't been airbrushed out as in the gallery prints.  
> Whatever, it
> is a very interesting (humbling)experience to print these images.
>
> Ken

Yeah Ken,
I also had downloaded that large file, and it printed beautifully. For 
me, what was even more amazing,
was that they had several more of Dorthea Lang's shots from the same 
"Migrant Mother" session, and it was
a real treat to she how she work around, and captured variations of the 
moment.

I think that's the best part of the FSA (and related Library of 
Congress) sites.  You can see entire takes from some of the
worlds finest photographers. I remember seeing some of Ansel Adams 
shots of a Japanese Internment camp in Montana or Wyoming, in the early 
1940's.
It was interesting to see, and IMO they were not very inspired at all, 
unlike much of his later work.

I've tried to direct students to the Library of Congress site, but 
unfortunately, most of them don't have the patience to hang in there 
long enough see the
real guts of it. Sad!

Clay Price

For those of you who may have wondered about what happened
to the Migrant Mother, see "Dust Bowl Descent" (Bill Ganzel),
p30-31.

Mac MacDougall