Virginia Snapshots 1
SOLD October 2000 |
Four circular, red-toned printing-out prints, 1899, probably from the cutting-edge Kodak No. 1 snapshot camera, mounted on an official KODAK album page (split). Images approx. 3.5 inches (80 cm) in diameter, overall dimensions of mount 12 x 10 inches (30x26 cm).
An excellent, varied series of snaps dated March 1899 and showing "Washington's Headquarters", "Shipyard," "Off Virginia Beach," and "Richmond." Since these are contact prints from the Kodak's revolutionary roll-film negatives, details are fine. The jaunty, condensed perspective produced by the Kodak's lens gives an effect not unlike the surreal view seen through a security peep-hole. Despite the distant objects visible in the Virginia Beach image, for example, the nearest waves are not only crisp but appear to be "right under one's nose" and have a quasi-tactile feeling. Evidently, wannabe "painterly" effects were not the only means by which photography was able to rise above boringly unimaginative realism at the start of the 20th century.
