Review Santa Fe, 2008, part II
Another gem from the weekend was seeing a copy of Celebrating the Negative: Photographs by John Loengard and watching gallerist Terry Etherton describe the very limited portfolio for those interested. John Loengard was a long-time Life magazine editor and published Celebrating the Negative as a trade edition in 1994 (Arcade Publishing). The book was a visual exploration of the negatives behind some of history’s most iconic images. Loengard photographed each negative with a pair of hands, oftentimes held by the original photographer. Each portfolio contains eighteen of Loengard’s photographs, an essay discussing each of the original pieces, and a signed copy of the trade edition of the book, all housed in an elegant clamshell box.
These photographs remind me of the absolute elegance that a b&w negative has (yes, there is some nostalgia wrapped up in that statement). They do, as a matter of fact, represent the original work, the first generation of all gelatin silver prints, though never the exhibited piece. Learning to read a negative was a primary experience for several generations of photographers; seeing the negatives of so many iconic images is really wonderful.
Below: Terry Etherton showing the portfolio to Stephen Bulger.
