Fleas!

09-23-06

It’s a Saturday morning in Paris and you know what that means….Flea Markets! Mark Osterman and France Scully met up with some of the fellows to look for photographic treasures in the open markets of Porte de Vanves in order to buy photographs for our own personal collections. We spent the entire morning scouting out good deals on all types of photographs -especially the ones that are hard to come by in the United States.

Gawain found a collection of additive screen plates, which was quite appropriate given his interest in early color photographic processes. Mark just missed purchasing a large format wet plate era camera, but France reminded him that they already have several of those at home. Rosina found a photographic album full of cabinet cards and Rachel was pleased when she found a stereo French tissue. All in all it was a successful day and a great way to end our stay in Paris.

Last but not least!

09-22-2006

The tours began this morning near Bastille at the Maison de Victor Hugo. We were greeted at the gates by Stephanie Cantarutti, the curator of the photographic collections, who guided us up several flights of stairs to an area of the building that was once Victor Hugo’s apartment. There, neatly displayed on the table, were boxes of photographs that were taken either by Hugo himself or more likely taken by some other photographer under Hugo’s direction. There were other photographers represented in this collection as well, including a large group of albumen prints by Julia Margaret Cameron given by her as a gift to Victor Hugo. Additionally, there were sets of drawings by Hugo himself some with photographs included in the designs. Victor Hugo was a novelist and poet who later in life became very active in politics and in the struggle for social justice. When Napoleon III came to power in 1851 he declared Hugo a traitor of France. Fearing for his life, he exiled himself voluntarily for the next twenty years to Brussels, Jersey and Guernsey. It was during that time that Hugo commissioned many landscape photographs of these areas, all of which can be seen in the collection at the Maison de Victor Hugo.

After a light rain storm and a long lunch, we headed off to the Société Française de Photographie to view some of the most magnificent and rare photographs in all of the collections in France. Carole Troufléau, collection manager and the woman responsible for arranging all of our tours in Paris, graciously showed us these rare treasures, some of which were so fragile that most of the public might not ever get to see them. It was incredibly generous for her to offer us this unique opportunity to view these early photographic items. We saw one of the rare extant daguerreotypes made by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre himself as well as a couple of daguerreotype portraits of him. We also saw an album of Hippolyte Bayard’s test samples for his direct positive process from 1839 (an incredibly rare treat!). Many of the fellows spent time viewing the six or seven Lippmann early color plates that were on the table for our viewing. There were really just too many amazing images to see;
including large collodion transfers on paper,
and an early three color carbon print by Ducos du Hauron with a full visual explanation of how it was made.

On Friday evening, the last official night in Paris, most of the Mellon Fellows met up for dinner and drinks with former ARP Fellow, Claire Buzit Tragni and her husband Florent.
We took a stroll around the area of Bastille before deciding on a dinner location that could accommodate our large group. We each enjoyed a lovely meal while having conversations about our time spent in Paris that week.

La Tour Eiffel Est Fermee!

9-21-06

This morning we met by the fancy metro stop on the Place Collette and proceeded from there to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. We assembled in the Chambre de Mazarin where conservator Patrick Lamotte of the Département des estampes et de la photographie had set up a selection of very interesting photographic items from the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale. This included a stunning album of Gustav Le Gray seascapes, a box of daguerreotypes by Girault de Prangey, two albums of oversize Baldus albumen prints, some wet-collodion negatives transferred to paper, Patrick was assisted in his display by two assistants, conservator Damien Plantey and intern Catherine Blum from a Paris library and archives school.

The Gustay Le Gray album was a series of his salt print prints. The prints are an astounding technical and artistic achievement, and were even more so when they were made in the 1850s. Printed from paper negatives many of them use combination printing from two negatives to achieve properly exposed sea and sky.

The Girault de Prangey daguerreotypes were from his travels around the Mediterranean in the 1850s. A wealthy amateur photographer with a love of the daguerreotype, de Prangey often photographed with quite large plates. Many of the plates we saw were a special format made by cutting an approximately 8 inch x 10 inch plate in half across the long dimension. He used a custom-built rotating camera back with the large plates to make the exposures on each side. After development the plates were cut in half to create the unique size. Some are panoramic scenes such as a photograph of the temple of the rock and surrounding landscape. He also used the format vertically such as with architectural views.

The Baldus albums had been made for Napoleon III and another family member and have been rarely viewed since deposited in the library in the 19th century. The albumen prints are very large, were contact printed from wet-collodion glass negatives, and were in extremely good condition exhibiting deep rich purple tones and excellent detail.

The afternoon was spent at the Centre de Recherches sur la Conservation des Documents Graphiques (CRCDG). Housed in the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, this civil institution is devoted to conservation research and analysis. Started in 1963, it has been led by its director Bertrand Levadrine since 1989, when he took over from founding director Francoise Flieder. After a brief introduction, Martine Gillet gave a tour of the photograph department showing examples of the research she has done in recent years on topics such as inkjet print fading, the deterioration of gelatin silver prints, and the development of a light dosimeter for museums. Following that Cecile Heraud showed us the microbiology lab where they do research and analysis of mold. Francoise Vienot shared her research on the testing of the color rendering of LEDs for use in museum lighting. And Véronique Rouchon showed us her work on the analysis of treatments for iron-gall ink induced paper deterioration. We were also shown research on solid-phase micro-extraction for the detection of book condition by the analysis of vapors being emitted by the decaying paper. All in all, an information-packed afternoon that left us exhausted and ready for refreshments. The mini-pastries and juice were just what we needed. Nothing like Entenmann’s we might add. This is Paris after all. They do these things right.

Then we hobbled back to our hotels, to re-bandage our feet, and prepare for a night of walking the city. Rachel and Gawain headed for Notre Dame where we met up with Patti Doyen, a good friend and fellow resident of the Eastman House this past year, where she was studying film preservation in the Jeffrey L. Selznick School of Film Preservation. After chasing down some fine vegetarian food we began our longer-than-anticipated walk to the Eiffel Tower. It was a lovely walk down the Seine, and we arrived at 11:30, tonight apparently for ascending the tower. “La Tour Eiffel Est Fermee” read the large and bright screen. We took a few pictures, caught the last metro before it closed (which only took us part way home), and laid down to sleep. Exhausted.

the City, the World in Color, and a Paris Conservation School

9-20-2006

This morning, we began our day of tours at the Musee Carnavalet where curator
Françoise Reynaud gave us all a tour of the library/collection facilities. There we had the opportunity to view some really magnificent daguerreotypes in their collection, including a remarkable panoramic view of Paris, a self-portrait by a daguerreotypist, and an array of other very early and significant objects related to the history of the city of Paris.

Due to a time conflict, Gawain and Rachel were had to leave the Musee Carnavalet a bit early to make their next appointment at the Musee Albert Kahn. This museum consists of several freestanding buildings that are surrounded by a serene Japanese garden. We were met by photograph conservator Cécile Miller who took us on a tour of their facilities. Albert Kahn made his fortune quite literally in gold, and with his money he commissioned photographers to document the landscapes of the world beginning in the last years of the 19th century. At first, the images were taken in stereo on gelatin glass plates but with the introduction of the autochrome in 1907 Albert Kahn set out to document the world in glorious color with this new process. The museum’s collection holds about 72,000 autochromes taken around the world, from Kahn’s home country of France to most of the countries in Asia, Africa and Europe (with the small exception that Kahn never sent photographers to the United States or Russia).
After WW1, the development all of the autochromes, which were diligently logged into several ledgers, became too expensive and time consuming to complete. Therefore, only the best images received full development and the others received partial development, so that they still look like a negative. About half of the collection remains in this state.

Following this tour, we headed north to the Institut National du Patrimoine, which is one of the four conservation graduate programs in Paris. There we were shown the photograph conservation lab by Aurélie Perreux and a few of the other students specializing in photography. One of the students gave us a presentation on her thesis concerning the treatment of the world’s largest ambrotype, which was about 2 feet by 3 feet!!! It was from the collection of the Musee des art et metiers. She described the reasons for deterioration on this photograph and how the problems were documented using analytical techniques like SEM-EDS. Following our tour of the lab, we were shown through the conservation library, which is the largest conservation library in France and certainly the largest one I’ve ever seen.

Photo Conservation in downtown Paris

9-19-2006

Early in the morning all of the fellows and faculty gathered outside of the Atelier de Restauration et de Conservation des Photographies de la Ville de Paris for the first tour of our day. Inside, Anne Cartier-Bresson and former Advanced Residency Program Fellow, Claire Tragni-Buzit led the tour of the lab. They had a lot of interesting projects to show which prompted plenty of discussions on how to house large oversized chromogenic prints, what type of binding tape to use on photographs on glass supports, and how to house unmounted albumen prints, to name a few. We also helped to identify a few unusual prints as well some rare chrystalotypes, which are albumen prints face mounted onto curved pieces of glass with painted glass surfaces beneath them.

Following a large group lunch we were taken into the photograph storage facility that houses the black and white images as well as the color materials in a special cool storage area. There the exhibitions manager and art handler showed us various contemporary photographs, as the collection contains materials from only the 1950s and beyond, as they put it, from Robert Frank’s The Americans to the present day.

Afterwards, the fellows in the current cycle all gave 15-minute presentations to the French conservation community, mostly on the subject of their current research projects but other research of interest as well. The talks included topics such as the monitoring of daguerreotypes on exhibition, glass deterioration, additive screen plates, a photographic wikipedia project, the treatment of photographic albums, historic photographic retouching, light bleaching and the use of new analytical techniques for use in field of photographic conservation. There was a river boat reception afterwards on the Seine overlooking Notre Dame Cathedral where the American and French conservators had an opportunity to converse over drinks with one another, getting better aquainted and exchanging our thoughts and philosophies about the field of photograph conservation.

The First Photographer

9/18/06

Happy Birthday Katherine! Today started with a brisk walk to Gare de Lyon. Arriving at 6:30 am, we had only a few minutes to enjoy a café au lait and croissants before boarding a 7:15 train for Châlon-sur-Saône, the birthplace of Nicéphore Niepce, the inventor of photography. Not only was he born there on the 7th of March 1765, he also took the world’s first photograph in 1826 at his nearby home in St. Loup de Varenne.

We arrived at the train station in Châlon and were taken by taxi to the Niepce house where our host Pierre-Yves Mahé and his wife graciously received us. We saw a remarkable video documenting some of the research that has occurred in recent years to rediscover the photographic processes that Niepce created, and the architectural and photographic detective work that was done to uncover the precise location of the window where the first photograph (EVER TAKEN IN THE WORLD!) was made.

Strong evidence supports that the first photograph was taken from a window on the second floor of the house. Historians and researchers found that the window was moved 70 cm to the left to make room for a chimney that was installed after Niepce’s death in 1833. Pierre-Yves pulled up the current floorboard to show us the original floor from Niepce’s time and the evidence of this move. The architectural evidence agrees with the photographic evidence which says that the photograph was taken from a position 70 cm to the right of the current window. There has been much to do about this “first” photograph ever since Gernsheim uncovered it in the 1950s, and particularly in recent years as the Getty, in collaboration with the Harry Ranson Center at University of Texas at Austin where the photograph is held, has performed much technical analysis on it and designed a super-housing to prevent any further deterioration.

The rest of the Niepce house is equally amazing. There are many small exhibits, historically accurate replicas of Niepce’s photographs and displays of equipments and workspaces as Niepce might have used them in the 19th century. Pierre-Yves showed us through each room in the house, giving us a comprehensive look at Niepce’s life and work as far as it is known.

We then took a walk to the nearby church cemetery where Niepce and his wife are buried. Niepce died in 1833, never seeing the result of his collaboration with Daguerre—the daguerreotype. OK, so maybe there’s a little oversimplification in that sentence, but we’re not writing a thesis on Niepce and Daguerre’s relationship here.

We then dined at a restaurant next to the house where a superb meal was served in four courses: a salad with shrimp, Brest chicken with potatoes and zucchini, a nice apple tart with caramel ice cream and love in a cage (some kind of tomato-like fruit, we didn’t name it) for dessert, and an espresso and chocolate to finish the meal. It was exquisitely presented and tasted as good as it looked.

We then moved on to the Nicéphore Niepce Museum in the afternoon. They had a remarkable display of Niepce’s original cameras and other equipment, a stunning exhibition on color photography including several Ducos du Hauron trichrome carbons and trichrome collotypes (hardly distinguishable by the naked eye at least in museum lighting), as well as an amazing collection of autochromes. Seriously now I’m running out of adjectives. These were truly one-of-a-kind world class photographic objects that were very well displayed. There was also a 3D show using two LCD projectors with polarizers and polarized glasses-- a very effective approach to the display of large numbers of stereoscopic images. There also was quite a large collection of early daguerreotypes on display.

And oh yes, an extensive display of street cameras, often with little mirrors attached to their sides for hair and make-up prep. Photographic paper was used as the in-camera negative, quickly processed and then reshot on a little arm that extends in front of the lens-- yielding a positive. Here's one of the cameras with Rosina reflected in the mirror.

It goes on and on. And it’s late. And sleep calls. Paris is amazing. A tasty salad/bread/goat cheese ensemble readily available for hungry bloggers after midnight from a random cafe. There is another long day planned tomorrow.

We Meet in Paris

9/17/06

We awoke today, later than we care to admit, but rested after Saturday’s long day of walking and traveling. We’re staying about a ten-minute walk from both Gare de Lyon and Bastille. We spent the afternoon exploring the neighborhood and finding our first Parisian food (thank god for the French). We then met up with the other fellows at Carole and Laszlo’s apartment for a welcoming celebration. Everyone was there: Grant, Mark and France, Sheila, Ralph, Stacey and Arnold, the fellows (for the record: Gustavo, Rosina, Karina, Louisa, Gawain, Rachel, Katherine, and Patrick), Karina’s sister (in from Russia), and even Tania (an ARP fellow from the 1st cycle) who happened to be in town on a courier trip from Library and Archives Canada where she now works the conservator of photographs. Carole and Laszlo gave us a warm introduction to Paris in their charming apartment on the Seine. Delicious Parisian bread and cheeses were consumed, and we retired in preparation (yet again) for the long work day ahead.

Paris by Rail

9-16-2006

Our last afternoon in London was spent at the flea markets outside of Notting Hill looking for historic photographic images for our personal study collections. The market at Portobello was packed with antique and artisan vendors selling everything from old clocks to knock-off handbags: a little something for everyone. Unfortunately the photographic sales were not as plentiful as most other items, though Gawain did manage to buy an entire photographic album of gelatin silver prints charting one man’s time spent as a military pilot (only 10 pounds!). Apart from some beautiful World War II plane images, it also has promising examples of silver gelatin print deterioration-- the topic of his research project. We saw many beautiful photographic items that were unfortunately a tad beyond our price range such as a stereo daguerreotype, a small photographic album of British Royalty, and some photographs by Bonfils, Fenton, and Reijlander. Asking prices for photographic items were twice or more what we are used to in the United States. We hear there are more bargains to be found in the markets of Paris. We will be sure to report back on this sometime this week.

On our stroll back to the hotel from the market, we stumbled quite serendipitously on a glorious street along the west side of Kensington Gardens that contained the residences of many foreign diplomats. Many buildings displayed their country’s flag. There were armed guards everywhere and signs indicating no photography, so we didn’t even try to snap a pic. You’ll you just have to take our word on how lovely this neighborhood was.

After a productive afternoon, we packed our bags and headed to the train station bound for Paris. The Eurostar train runs from London into the country side of England and then underground through the English Channel and then enters France at Calais and onto Paris. We were only a brief subway ride away from our hotel, where, exhausted, we called it a night in preparation for an adventure-filled week of photography and conservation in Paris.

The Double Decker Bus

9/15/06

After yesterday’s late night out at the art opening and dinner, we finally caught up on our sleep. No longer pestered by the vicissitudes of jet lag we got a good 10 hours and woke up truly refreshed for the first time in a few days. After hitting up Starbucks for coffee and a blog, we headed for “The Original Tour” double decker bus stop. With only one day left to see ‘everything’ (Saturday is reserved for flea markets and the train to Paris) we had to move fast and the tube would not suffice.

We began our tour around the corner from our hotel at the south side of Kensington Gardens on top of a red double decker bus and proceeded south on Gloucester Road, then west on Cromwell Rd, past the V&A, and towards the Thames and the center of London. The day was cloudy and cool but very comfortable. After changing buses to the yellow route, we flew by Buckingham Palace (we will not be seeing the changing of the guard), Westminster Abbey (the queen is out of town), Big Ben, All Hallows Church (where William Penn was baptized AND Charles Dickens’ parents were married), and finally onto Trafalgar Square where we jumped out for a gander in the National Gallery. We did a highlights-only tour of the National Gallery including Holbein’s The Ambassadors (with that funky skeleton head painted in extreme perspective) and Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ, Bellini’s The Doge, and a slew of Canaletto’s. Sadly, the galleries containing the Cezanne’s and Van Gogh’s were closed for renovation. After a brief walk about Trafalgar Square, we were off again on the bus towards St. Paul’s Cathedral, crossing the Thames between the London Bridge (the boring one) and the Tower Bridge (the fun one), until we passed the London Tower, where our guide spoke of the executions of Henry the VIII’s wives. Our favorite story was of the man who died laughing. Just before he was executed, part of the staging collapsed and killed a number of people. He laughed, saying that these people had come to see him executed but they had died themselves instead. Then, he was no more. We’re not sure who really had the last laugh.

We debarked again at the Tate Modern. Converted from an abandoned power station in the 1990s, the Tate Modern is a showcase for modern and contemporary art. The ceilings are high, the art, well, remarkable (sometimes good, sometimes not to our taste). An orchestral collection of clips by Christian Marclay edited and shown on four projection screens caught Rachel’s fancy, while Gawain stared at a Rothko, but walked away disappointed. It didn’t have the transcendental effect he was hoping for. Both Rachel and Gawain were delighted to see an exhibition of silver gelatin photographs that included works from Agtet, Alfred Steiglitz, Lewis Hine, Fred Zimmerman, and Manuel Alvarez Bravo.

The Millennium Bridge crosses the Thames at the Tate Modern with the Dome of St. Paul visible on the far bank. Since the hour was getting late and the skies cloudy, we walked north across the bridge, taking pictures and looking forward to sitting again. Forty-five minutes later we found our bus stop only to discover that the Original Bus Tour had long ceased touring for the day. So we headed for the tube, weary, and no longer minding the 3 BPs (US$6) for a single one-way ride.

Dinner was Indian; a specialty of London that Kate and John had said was a must-eat for our brief stay. Thoroughly enjoyed, we walked back to the hotel ready for a night of postcards and bed.

The White Cube

9-14-2006

Our luggage arrived today! So with a swift change of clothes we were out on the streets of our neighborhood, Kensington, where we took a quick run through a photograph exhibit Lost Landscapes at the Royal Geographical Society. The exhibit contained photographic images of geographic maps and of the world's electrical use at night as well as juxtaposed images of Hong Kong from 1890 and 1990.

Continuing down the street we arrived at the Victoria and Albert Museum where we strolled through this beautiful building amongst all of its wonderful treasures. The museum has an amazing collection of architectural replicas that were made to scale, a large silver collection and rooms upon rooms of eastern art. We saw a small but thorough photography exhibit that showcased everything from a daguerreotype to a modern digital c-print (they LOVE the term c-print here). Perhaps one of the highlights of the day was an oversized Lambda print with a plastic lenticular overlay that switched between three images as you passed it within the room (dressed, bikini, and uh…natural).



Following the Victoria and Albert we headed on the underground to Tate Store, the storage facility for both Tate Modern and Tate Britain. Former Advanced Residency Program Fellow, Kate Jennings, led our tour through this facility where she explained her role as Conservator of Time-based Media at the Tate. Theresa Cho, a graduate student in book conservation at the Camberwell program, joined us for the tour. Kate spoke to us of the concerns of making surrogates for all of the analog and digital media, challenges with installations that utilize color slide projection and about their on-going cold storage project for the motion picture reels in their collection. Their storage facility (sorry pictures were not allowed inside) were OVERSIZE in EVERY way. They had at least 30 foot ceilings (probably more) with 30 foot doors, and 30 foot sliding storage racks. Huge rooms with hundreds of yellow crates. It was very impressive.



After the tour, Kate's husband, Jon Lewis, took us to an art opening at the White Cube in the trendy Londong neighborhood of Shoreditch. The art gallery is owned by Jay Jopling who represents many of the young British artists like Damien Hirst and Sam Taylor-wood. After a look at the oversized monochromatic offset prints by Neal Tait, we all had a nice meal at a Vietnamese restaurant before calling it a night. Tomorrow will guarantee us a long day as we set out for a double-decker tour bus ride around all of London.

Arriving in London

9-13-2006

We (Rachel and Gawain) have set out a few days before the scheduled meeting day of September 17th, at which time the Mellon Fellows will meet in Paris. We have come to London.

Life is a system of checks and balances; and traveling is no exception to this rule. We began our precisely made travel plans at the Rochester International Airport, where we were supposed to board our flight with Northwest Airlines. Due to unfavorable weather conditions in the Midwest, our flight initially set to Detroit would not make international connections on time. We were prompted to the United Airlines counter where we were re-routed to Chicago O’Hare only to change airlines again flying internationally on American Airlines, switching our arrival airport from Gatwick to Heathrow in London. We checked our luggage with United and hoped that it would arrive at the right airport on the right plane. Several weather delays and two random personal searches later, we made it on our plane to London with just seconds to spare. I even managed to somehow get a vegetarian meal despite the airline changes. We woke up from our redeye slumber, to arrive at Heathrow with no luggage at the baggage claim (which in London is called the baggage re-claim). The airline offered us toiletry kits and the promise of our luggage arriving the next morning. With no tears shed, we headed out to find our hotel, which was quite simple with the excellent public transportation system here. Our hotel rests in a lovely area of town called Kensington, which contains curvy roads, an extensive shopping district and an enormous park. We had to change rooms once as our hotel room was still dirty from the last occupant, which forced us to camp out in the lobby for a brief nap. Once finally checked into the room, we decided to stroll in yesterday’s clothes out for our first bite to eat. We settled on a Lebanese restaurant, feasting on a vegetarian platter of hummus, baba ganoosh, falafel, grapes leaves and spinach pie. Despite the fact we were jetlagged and un-showered, this meal ended up being the best part of the day. But then it became even better as we were given a complementary dessert at the end our meal. Free baklava never tasted so delicious. We’ve suddenly forgotten all about the mishaps of the day. Here’s to a fresh welcoming start in London, (if our luggage does indeed arrive)!

Introduction

This travel blog was created to document the time spent overseas by the current Andrew W. Mellon Fellows in the Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. We will be updating this blog daily for the latter half of September 2006. Please feel free to check in and enjoy our journey through many photographic collections in London and Paris.

The current cycle of fellows includes Luisa Casella, Rosina Herrera, Karina Kashina, Gustavo Lozano, Patrick Ravines, Gawain Weaver, Rachel Wetzel and Katharine Whitman. For more information on the program in photograph conservation at the George Eastman House visit the Advanced Residency Program's web site.