| Newsletter for Collectors - Vol 10.8 | September 2, 2016 | | | Home • What‘s New • Photographers • Online Exhibitions
Contents • Alphabetical • Styles and movements • Articles
Visual Indexes • Galleries & Dealers • Timelines • Techniques
Library • Contact us Welcome to another Luminous-Lint Newsletter.
In 1945 American Government Science Advisor Vannevar Bush wrote an article "As We May Think" in The Atlantic Monthly. The article proposed a mechanised system where all the world's knowledge could be stored on microfilm and linked together - the MEMEX.
In the 1980s, long before the World Wide Web, I attended a conference on Hypermedia at York University in England where one of the speakers was Ted Nelson, a visionary on linking information. Ted outlined his Project Xanadu software that provided a simple interface to global information. Before his presentation the AV technician had dropped his Kodak slide carousel (remember those?) and the slides were mixed up: upside down, backwards and every other way. Unsurprisingly Ted was furious but the random nature of connections is important.
But how does this relate to better understanding photography?
Connections on Luminous-Lint |
Knowledge consists of the wisdom to interpret information and information is based on data and the connections that link it together. The World Wide Web, which had its 25th anniversary only a couple of weeks ago, is essentially a way of linking information.
So how does Luminous-Lint provide meaningful connections throughout photohistory?
Obvious connections
- Photographs taken by a single photographer
- Portraits of a single photographer
- Photographs within a single collection
- Photographs in a series
- Thematic connections (i.e. tags, categories)
- Spatial connections
- Styles and movements
- Photographs using a particular process
- Provenance connections
- Connections to primary and secondary sources
- Conservation connections
For the "obvious connections" most institutions will do some of these although handling the "Styles and movements" is more tricky than it appears. Because of departmental issues in larger organisations linkages between the library holdings and individual objects can be difficult to implement.
The "obvious connections" are the bedrock of research but we can go far deeper.
Not so obvious connections
- Visual similarities between images
- Cultural connections between images
- Images taken in single year
- Images taken on a single day
- Connections between images in diverse collections
- Typological connections
- Hierarchical relationships
Today Luminous-Lint includes images from 3,000 public and private collections and that enables it to address the "Not so obvious connections" in novel ways.
In the last Luminous-Lint Newsletter (Vol 10.7, July 28, 2016) I outlined some of the "Improvements to searching" that are now available and these are a part of the story.
Subscribers will have noticed the "Contextualize" link below each image and this is where the richness of connections both the "obvious" and the "not so obvious" becomes apparent.
The screenshots are rather small in this Newsletter but if you click on them you'll see larger versions.
Screenshot: Different versions of photographs
The image above shows a section of a far larger index that is useful for locating variants.
Visual similarities between images taken by different photographers are always intriguing and here are some examples.
Screenshot: Visual similarities - different photographers
Indexes on Luminous-Lint highlight photographs that have similar compositions right through the history of photography providing an essential analytical tool. This is impossble to achieve without accessing numerous distinct collections.
Screenshot: Visual similarities - Gustave Le Gray - Henry Stuart Wortley - Dmitry Ermakov - Fred Judge - Leonid Shokin
As I mentioned earlier Luminous-Lint covers all periods of photography so here is part of an ever-expanding Visual Index on how Trees have been photographed between 1900 and 2006.
Screenshot: Trees 1900-2006
The many types of connections on Luminous-Lint encourage exploration and different ways of understanding trends that are impossible to grasp from single collections.
I'm interested in your suggestions for other indexes and connections that would be useful.
What's next on Luminous-Lint? |
Luminous-Lint starts with the "Prehistory of Photography" and continues through to the present day covering all themes, techniques and regions of the world. The coverage for some themes is deep but for others it is still shallow and this needs to be addressed. Regional coverage needs to be improved and this will take some time. First the images need to be collected, linked in and only then can the texts be prepared.
The existing Themes will continue to be enhanced as fresh content arrives in. Thanks to everybody assisting with this.
Luminous-Lint is collaborative and I encourage you, and your institution, to join in so we can improve our understanding of the many diverse histories of photography.
All the best,
Alan
alan@luminous-lint.com
Subscriptions are available to access the over 1,000 Themes on Luminous-Lint, powerful Visual Indexes, tools to contextualize single images and some of the more detailed parts of the website. Luminous-Lint is an evolving resource where all parts are enhanced and added to every day.
Details about subscriptions
Thanks to all those subscribing to, and supporting, Luminous-Lint as it continues to improve.
Requests for further information - and still looking for ... |
Hand-coloured landscapes
Before colour processes were commercially available photographers got around it by hand-colouring and tinting. Early hand coloured daguerreotypes of landscapes don‘t exist (if I‘m incorrect on this please let me know), and coloured salt prints or large albumen prints of landscapes are rare. The exception to this may be stereoviews and lantern slides where there are quite a number. If you have, or know of any, hand-coloured landscape photographs I‘d be most interested. | 
LL/53938 | 
LL/6696 | 
LL/66408 |
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Yngve Baum (1945, 24 October - ) was born - Sweden. Swedish photographer.
Fred G. Korth (1902, 24 October - 1982, 2 May) was born - Germany, Guben. He moved to the USA in 1926. Originally he was a pictorialist and he won medals at international exhibitions.
Désiré Charnay (1828, 2 May - 1915, 24 October) died - France, Paris. French traveler and archaeologist who was active in Mexico during three periods (1857-1861, 1880-1883 and 1886). He is best known for his photographic documentation of archaeological sites. Between 1862-1863 he published Cités et ruines améMore...
Deborah Turbeville (1937, 6 July - 2013, 24 October) died - US, NY, Manhattan. |
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