In Kodak’s Hometown, Memory and History By JAMES ESTRIN

Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb, a husband and wife photography team, documented Rochester after Eastman Kodak’s bankruptcy in their new book, “Memory City,” published by Radius Books. Previously they published “Violet Isle,” a volume on modern-day Cuba. Ms. Norris Webb’s book “My Dakota” was featured on Lens in  2012, while Mr. Webb’s book “The Suffering of Light” was featured on Lens in 2011. He is a member of Magnum Photos. Their conversation with James Estrin has been edited.

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The Terminal by Alfred Stieglitz

The Terminal, 1892
Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864–1946)
Photogravure; 4 3/4 x 6 5/16 in. (12.1 x 16 cm)

Alfred Stieglitz took this picture using a small 4 x 5 camera, an instrument not considered at the time to be worthy of artistic photography. Unlike the unwieldy 8 x 10 view camera (which required a tripod), this camera gave Stieglitz greater freedom and mobility to roam the city and respond quickly to the ever-changing street life around him.  

The Terminal predicts by over a decade the radical transformation of the medium from painterly prints of rarified subjects to what the critic Sadakichi Hartmann dubbed "straight photography." This new photography would take as its subject matter the quotidian aspects of modern urban life, using only techniques that are unique to the medium. At the same time, in this and other photographs he made around the turn of the century, Stieglitz used natural elements such as smoke, rain, and snow to soften and unify the image into a pictorially pleasing synthesis.

Photographer Documents Diminishing Darkrooms Around the World by Jenna Garrett

Photographers: Michel Campeau

My project, built on an observation of the decline of silver-based photography, took as its central object the darkroom, rapidly deserted because of the phenomenal growth in computer technologies. Both an actor in and a witness of this pivotal period in the history of art and photography, caught between analogue and digital processes, I wished to record the iconic nature of these post-industrial ruins and the remains strewn among them.—Michael Campeau

Since 2003, Canadian photographer Michel Campeau has traveled all over the world to document the last of the photographic darkrooms. Toronto, Havana, Paris, Berlin and Ho Chi Minh City are just some of the cities Campeau has traveled to, seeking out what he feels are historic and dying spaces. As digital technologies rapidly take over analog, Campeau’s book of darkrooms act as both an artifact and a memorial of a disappearing tradition. Photographic Darkroom reveals that no matter where in the world, photographers have gathered in nearly identical spaces for decades, all to witness the magic that happens in the chemistry when the lights are shut off.

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Monday's gift

Photographs © Barbara Gibson

Monday's gift from a friend of mine - a little piece of history of someone's family.