Comments on: Wonderful photographs

By: Jonathan Lundell

Jonathan Lundell — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 19:24:16 +0000

Fascinating. To quote Chris, “The pictures, from about 1905, are so natural and lively that—allowing for changes in clothing in some cases—they could have been taken at any time up to last week.” Uh-huh.
Before seeing the update, I pulled out a book of August Sander’s work, dating (ostensibly) 20 or so years later than Szathmary’s. The contrast is instructive. Sander’s portraits are posed and static, albeit kind and generous, wonderful work. They have none of the casual, candid feel of the “Szathmary” photos.
Was candid photography practical at the turn of the century? Kodak introduced the Brownie and 120 film around 1900, but I imagine that exposure times must have still required fairly static subjects.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:42:40 +0000

I think the reason Szathmary’s work is hard to locate is explained by following this link:
http://www.machajdik.de/html/news.html
Please feel free to delete this comment if you’re already aware of this, and the above post is merely a continuation of Gustav Szathmary’s coming into being. I’m now assuming, of course, the above site is sincere!

By: Vance Maverick

Vance Maverick — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 16:08:43 +0000

Very impressive, maybe particularly the portrait of Rilke, de-Olympianizing him, as it were, without loss of dignity.
The story of his death and exhumation (in the PDF) is also irresistibly lurid, right down to the display of his “undecaying corpse” in an art museum.