Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => Street Showcase => Topic started by: Chris Kern on June 20, 2018, 01:56:02 am

Title: Photojournalism
Post by: Chris Kern on June 20, 2018, 01:56:02 am
This photo appears to have been carefully posed.  Or maybe like a scene showing two actors on the set for a noirish 1950s movie.  In reality, it's neither.  It is a candid shot of Sid Varney (left) the Linotype machine operator for The Dartmouth, the student newspaper of Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire), reviewing a sample from the initial run of the June 17, 1968, edition for any serious flaws, while the pressman, Ira Holmes, waits for the go-ahead to restart the temperamental 19th Century flatbed printing press.  I was the night editor for that edition and unless Sid found some egregious error that required me to compose a new headline, or something of that ilk, my work was done.  Though Sid and Ira obviously were aware that I had been shooting pictures, they were completely oblivious to me as I peered at them through the viewfinder of my Honeywell Pentax SLR and waited for the right time to snap the shutter.  Alas, that particular moment turned out to be so decisive that the photograph looks set up.
Title: Re: Photojournalism
Post by: fdisilvestro on June 20, 2018, 03:30:59 am
Cool, but it does not look as a flatbed printing press
Title: Re: Photojournalism
Post by: Ivophoto on June 20, 2018, 04:31:05 am
Posed or not, this is such a great picture. Could be a picture straight out a 50’s magazine.
Title: Re: Photojournalism
Post by: JNB_Rare on June 20, 2018, 06:40:01 am
Superb. Tells a story, wonderfully composed. As you say, so much so that it does look like a posed documentary/stock shot.
Title: Re: Photojournalism
Post by: Telecaster on June 20, 2018, 03:47:24 pm
Excellent docu-photo. Can't see the printing surface in the pic so no way to tell whether or not it's flat.  :)

-Dave-
Title: Re: Photojournalism
Post by: RSL on June 20, 2018, 04:15:44 pm
Very good photojournalism, Chris.
Title: Re: Photojournalism
Post by: fdisilvestro on June 20, 2018, 05:36:08 pm
I stand corrected. Is is a flatbed press, th Goss Cox-O-Type
Title: Re: Photojournalism
Post by: MattBurt on June 20, 2018, 06:28:18 pm
I like it!
Title: Re: Photojournalism
Post by: Chris Kern on June 20, 2018, 08:32:16 pm
I appreciate the comments, gentle men.

The printing press was indeed a Goss Cox-o-Type—the name is faintly visible on the strut above the web (roll of paper) in the photo—but my recollection that it had been manufactured in the 19th Century was faulty; that model was not introduced until 1928.

Quote
“The reel-fed flatbed perfecting press was the answer to the requirements of the smaller newspaper, and as far as can be judged the first of its kind was the Duplex, invented by Paul Cox in 1889 and built by the Duplex Printing Press Company, of Battle Creek, Michigan. . . .  This web-fed machine had two flat beds, each of which could accommodate four-page formes, one above the other, and two traveling cylinders, . . . which printed an eight-page newspaper at each stroke. . . .  Duplex's main competitor . . . was the Goss Printing Press Company of Chicago. . . .   In 1908 Paul Cox transferred his affections to Goss, and they produced a reel-fed flatbed web perfecting machine from his patent of a somewhat different design to the earlier machine. . . . The Goss Cox-o-Type, named after its designer, . . . was brought out in 1928.  It printed and delivered eight pages full-newspaper size or sixteen ‘tabloid’ size.”

James Moran, Printing Presses: History and Development from the Fifteenth Century to Modern Times, University of California Press, 1978.

While this photo qualifies as street photography according to my definition of the genre (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=125135.msg1047678#msg1047678), I'm loathe to call it that.  It seems to me that to be considered street photography an image ought not only to be unposed, it should appear to be unposed.  And as I mentioned at this outset, this shot looks like I set it up, even though the subjects actually were just going about their jobs when I made the picture, and were unaware that I was photographing them.
Title: Re: Photojournalism
Post by: Rayyan on June 21, 2018, 12:52:41 pm

Chris, whatever genre this image is categorized as; it is an excellent shot.

Just wonder what the comments would have been if you had not added the text to this image!

Best.