A while back, I wrote a blog post about my enjoyment in digitizing the William Gedney Photograph collection and how it was inspiring me to build a darkroom in my garage. I wish I could say that the darkroom is up and running but so far all I’ve installed is the sink. However, as Molly announced in her last Bitstreams post, we have launched the Gedney collection which includes series two series that are complete (Finished Prints and Contact Sheets) and more to come.
The newly launched site brings together this amazing body of work in a seamless way. The site allows you to browse the collection, use the search box to find something specific or use the facets to filter by series, location, subject, year and format. If that isn’t enough, we have not only related prints from the same contact sheet but also related prints of the same image. For example, you can browse the collection and click on an image of Virgil Thomson, an American composer, smoothly zoom in and out of the image, then scroll to the bottom of the page to find a thumbnail of the contact sheet from which the negative comes. When you click through the thumbnial you can zoom into the contact sheet and see additional shots that Gedney took. You even can see which frames he highlighted for closer inspection. If you scroll to the bottom of this contact sheet page you will find that 2 of those highlighted frames have corresponding finished prints. Wow! I am telling you, checkout the site, it is super cool!
What you do not see [yet], because I am in the middle of digitizing this series, is all of the proof prints Gedney produced of Virgil Thomson, 36 in all. Here are a few below.
Once the proof prints are digitized and ingested into the Repository you will be able to experience Gedney’s photographs from many different angles, vantage points and perspectives.
Stay tuned!
What a great collection of his work!. Quick question: Is there a catalog book of his work.
Please let me know.
Thank you!.