This summer in the New England area, where PhotoSeed calls home, has seen copious hydrangea blooms like none in recent memory. So with juxtaposition in mind, I cracked an issue of Camera Work and brought to life for a moment one of my favorite Adolf De Meyer photographs from 1908: Still Life, featuring several limp hydrangea blooms balancing from a clear glass of water. The radical composition sucks me in every time I see this photograph and was an important marker in my own development as a young photographer- that and the stunning Jan Groover (American: 1943–2012) compositions featuring household cutlery.

Perhaps inspiration itself for the much later André Kertész photograph called “Melancholic Tulip, New York”, dating to 1939, in which a drooping bloom is photographed by Kertész (American, born Hungary 1894-1985) using a parabolic mirror- a metaphor, according to the Getty “that is also a self-portrait of the artist as a wilted flower”. Perhaps. But for me, one thing is constant in Photography: changing perspectives. Assuming a human is behind that lens, (sorry AI) photography is ever changing. Just like the weather of late and climate change in particular. The result of these factors- fleeting beauty showcased in bountiful hydrangea blooms- can be distilled from a few factors. In The Times, Hank Sanders writes on July 10, 2024 and quotes Melissa Finley, Thain Curator of Woody Plants at the New York Botanical Garden, who said that after a rainy summer and fall in 2023, a warm winter with El Niño conditions “caused very little damage to the dormant buds, leading to an explosion of blossoms now.” As for myself, I’m going to enjoy the show around these parts, which includes these glorious backyard blossoms, juxtaposed. I hope you do too.

Welcome to the newly redesigned PhotoSeed website, version 2.0.  It has been several years in the making, with the reality that the first version became technically obsolete, no matter the myriad work arounds and, dare I say, gaffer tape employed to keep it functioning.

Back end engineer Tyler Craft and designer Jay David, the same talent behind the first generation 2011 PhotoSeed website that won a 2012 Webby award for the Art category, have rejoined forces and rebuilt PhotoSeed from the ground up. The result: simplified, stripped down, and better user function. However, for a website devoted to Photography, what we like most of all, in our humble opinion, is that the site itself is a work of art.  

Changes ⎯ like how gender-bending Iowa Vaudevillian Harry Hemphill, above, did to transform himself into the drapery dancer with the stage name “Huntress”—are not just literal constructs but unique examples of photographic evidence collected by this archive to showcase and keep you coming back for more. In keeping with the continuing purpose of establishing a more concise historical record for known and unknown photographers working in the era of artistic photography (roughly 1890-1930), PhotoSeed hopes to continue a world-wide discussion and re-evaluation of this material. We look forward to your input, suggestions and criticisms for the purpose of improving the site for all who visit.   

⎯David Spencer- Massachusetts, May, 2024

A reappraisal of old photos has recently invaded the public conversation of late. Artificial intelligence, in the form of video driver technology invented by Israeli company D-ID, was licensed earlier this year to genealogy and DNA company MyHeritage with the moniker Deep Nostalgia™. Old photographs, no matter their original medium, are brought to life as short animated video clips, and may never be seen in the same way again.

Taking up the company’s free offer to try out the technology, I applied it to a recent archive acquisition, A Holbein Woman, taken in the very early 1890’s by Deerfield, Massachusetts sister photographers Frances Stebbins and Mary Electa Allen. You can see the result in a short 12 second video posted to YouTube embedded above in this post.

The photograph, considered a masterwork of early genre pictorialist portrait photography, is of their mother Mary Stebbins Allen, (1819-1903) and in itself done after the then fashionable practice (1.) of an imitation painting: in this case, a Renaissance portrait by Bavarian artist Hans Holbein the Elder. (c. 1460-1524) To add another layer of mystery, research I did last year revealed the primary source portrait- the oil painting (c.1520-1525) known as “Portrait of a Woman from Southern Germany” in the collection of the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, was originally attributed to Holbein’s son “The Younger”, (c. 1497-1543) with the now updated disclaimer by the museum’s curators as being “formerly attributed” to this artist. This painting can be seen at upper right, with a colorized version of the Allen sisters portrait run through remarkable colorization technology MyHeritage In Color™ at left.

Another words, if being accurate to revisionist history but without the convenient addition of a famous name, (2.) the Allen sisters efforts in the modern day might conceivably be retitled “A Formerly Attributed Woman” rather than “A Holbein Woman”.

And although it is but one example reanimated from that era using new technology, it seems reasonable to conclude 21st Century progress courtesy of Deep Nostalgia™ may only reinforce and belie a continuation of certain prejudices and expectations from the past, the same criticism that could be leveled at video driver technology being only an approximation of humanity, leaving us devoid of the true mannerisms of those who actually lived.

“Creepy” is one online descriptor I kept encountering in people’s reactions to this new technology, but when has that ever stopped “progress”? (3.) Are we doomed or can fleeting perceptions of the past in old photographs brought to “life” change our future for the better, our marveling reactions to it as incidental as the new shiny object of the here and now? Only time will tell. (4.)    David Spencer-

Notes:

1. The worldwide pandemic brought on by COVID-19 lockdowns inspired a massive revival of imitation paintings and other works of art including photography. Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum in March, 2020 promoted their Stay at Home Challenge!, inviting people to recreate modern day reinterpretations from masterworks in their collection. This was soon followed by the Getty museum in California. One of the very first “challenge” accounts to promote this revived genre was the Netherlands Instagram account Tussen Kunst & Quarantaine– translating to “between art and quarantine” which first inspired the Rijksmuseum challenge.

2. This would never happen.

3. An examination of ethical concerns as a result of so-called Deepfake technology contained within Deep Nostalgia™ is explored in a New York Times article written by Daniel Victor from March 10, 2021: Your Loved Ones, and Eerie Tom Cruise Videos, Reanimate Unease With Deepfakes.

4. That shiny object has been here since February, 2021. Care to upload a selfie, historical photograph or stock pic of Kim Jong-un, Mao Zedong or Joe Biden and see yourself or them “sing” to popular music? Then download the WOMBO app here. Guardian technology columnist Helen Sullivan reports on March 12, 2021 the app just might be giving competition to Deep Nostalgia™.