The angled rays of early morning light cut through a forest canopy, settling at the base of what are believed to be a young stand of Redwood trees, located in the present-day Muir Woods National Monument in Marin County, CA.

With the title of this work noted by the photographer’s grandson Thomas High, this print by Sigismund Blumann is believed to be a contact print due to its’ small size from the original negative. It is additionally presented here with a slight textured screen border around the image which the photographer added in the darkroom.

Regarding his early beliefs on “straight” versus “doctored” negatives, photographic historian Christian A. Peterson notes:

He felt that use of a ‘doctored’ negative excluded the resulting picture from classification as a photograph, and he even objected to enlargements, preferring the classic, small and intimate contact print. (1.)

And Peterson also mentions on Blumann’s use of screens for his work, although he was more apt to include them as part of enlarged negatives, rather than the contact print seen here:

In addition to all these media, Blumann used a variety of texture screens, inserting them between the negative and paper during enlargement to create lined and stippled patterns. (2.)

Provenance: Sigismund Blumann’s grandson.

1. see: Early Years in Photography: “Sigismund Blumann, California Editor and Photographer”, by Christian A. Peterson in History of Photography, vol. 26, no. 1. (Spring 2002) p. 55.
2. Ibid: p. 70