Show your Hunt and RMY photo wins

[bgar3]

Bob, I once had your new Thompson Joe Wood image, along with a corresponding image of Mathewson with a bat, almost as if taken together.
On The Who was the photographer question I can’t add actual facts or citations, but I can say that as a collector of both Bain and Thompson images in the 80’s and 90’s, before the current craze, all the collectors I knew accepted that the photos were taken by various photographers working for a larger agency. Also I think you can notice quite a difference in some of the Thompson’s which can sometimes be just out of focus. For what it is worth, the early feeling amoung collectors ranked Thompson behind Bain and Conlan in value. All three were of the highest order. There was a show of their work just after the famous Baseball Magazine sale, in New York I believe, but I no longer have my photos or material.
Finally, if Sphere and Ash is who I think he is, he used to possess one of the 3 greatest photo collections I have ever seen and was considered one of the most knowledgeable collectors of the time, who was very helpful to a fellow collector with a small budget.
At the risk of sounding like an Old Timer, which I quess I am, this was all taking place when you could get 100’s of these photos at one time. We would sometimes hold drafts of collections we had purchased, with later trades etc.
the collections that I know are still out there are truly amazing.

[Forever Young]

Originally Posted by bgar3

Bob, I once had your new Thompson Joe Wood image, along with a corresponding image of Mathewson with a bat, almost as if taken together.
On The Who was the photographer question I can’t add actual facts or citations, but I can say that as a collector of both Bain and Thompson images in the 80’s and 90’s, before the current craze, all the collectors I knew accepted that the photos were taken by various photographers working for a larger agency. Also I think you can notice quite a difference in some of the Thompson’s which can sometimes be just out of focus. For what it is worth, the early feeling amoung collectors ranked Thompson behind Bain and Conlan in value. All three were of the highest order. There was a show of their work just after the famous Baseball Magazine sale, in New York I believe, but I no longer have my photos or material.
Finally, if Sphere and Ash is who I think he is, he used to possess one of the 3 greatest photo collections I have ever seen and was considered one of the most knowledgeable collectors of the time, who was very helpful to a fellow collector with a small budget.
At the risk of sounding like an Old Timer, which I quess I am, this was all taking place when you could get 100’s of these photos at one time. We would sometimes hold drafts of collections we had purchased, with later trades etc.
the collections that I know are still out there are truly amazing.

Recent craze? Paul Thompson has been getting higher prices(particular in ruth) for a long while now. For good reason, they are beautiful images. Some of them rivaled by no one.
To say Paul Thompson was in no way a photographer and that he took zero photos ever, is just not factual. There is no way of knowing this and the library of Congress disagrees.
Even with a 1940 obit saying something, it was probably written by someone born in the 1800s. Photography was not a glamorous job. Talking in absolutes when absolutes aren’t known, or can never be proven seems odd to me. My guess is neither of you have Paul Thompson centric collections :-)
In my opinion, Paul Thompson credited photos are some of the greatest shots in baseball history. Some are perfect some are less than perfect just like Conlon, Bain, Van Oeyen etc..
I enjoy Some more than others but appreciate all of them.

[sphere and ash]

I believe the T205 images are spectacular and undervalued (disclosure: I own about a dozen and bought some in Hunt). It's my conjecture that they were taken expressly for the T205 set, which may explain in part why they represent such ground-breaking portraiture for their time.

I think the onus is on anyone asserting that Thompson took the images for which his agency is credited: find a contemporary reference. Conlon left mountains of evidence that he was a photographer--he entered his images into competitions, he wrote articles, he granted interviews. If Thompson was a photographer, there's a mention of it somewhere.

Edited to add: just saw the New York Times obituary. I don't think we're going to get a clearer statement than this: "Many people naturally assumed that Mr. Thompson was, or had been, an expert cameraman himself, but such was not the case." Thanks for finding it, Andrew.

[bgar3]

My reference to recent craze was to contrast it to the 80’s and 90’s, what I thought was obvious was apparently not. So there is no misunderstanding I think photographs identified as Paul Thompson are fantastic and among the best. In fact in the Baseball Magazine sale I believe I paid then record prices for lots of Thompson photos. Oh the good old days.
Thanks for the obituary.

[Lordstan]

Wow. That is an interesting obit.

I do notice one thing about the obit and the Smithsonian article. Neither says absolutely that he did or did not take photos himself.

In the smithsonian article regarding the T205s...
"The gold borders sported another enhancement—portraits based on a remarkable series of contemplative close-ups by a New York City-based freelance photographer named Paul Thompson. Thompson, who built his reputation and his studio on a sitting with Mark Twain, would hire others to take pictures for him, but the gold-border portraits are attributed to him because they alone are copyrighted under his name."

To me this means, they assume he took them because no one else was given credit, not because someone has specific proof he did. This conclusion, which in many ways is a reasonable and logical one to make, is clearly disproven by the story towards the end of the obit about the boat race. This clearly shows photos taken by others were not just released, but were published, under his name.

Second, In the obit...
"Many people naturally assumed that Mr. Thompson was, or had been, an expert cameraman himself, but such was not the case. His success in developing his business came from his ability to select able associates, several of whom started their careers with him as office boys."

Now this does not say he never took photos. He obviously took the Twain ones. I assume he took many others, but there is no way to know for sure how many. Additionally, there is no way to know which one were specifically taken by him vs his employees.

When you put this information together, the only absolute conclusion you can make is that other photographers took at least some of the photos credited to Paul Thompson.

[sphere and ash]

I've been thinking about the sentence, "the gold-border portraits are attributed to him because they alone are copyrighted under his name," and it doesn't make sense. Just because you hold a copyright doesn't mean that you're the artist. All it means is that Thompson was the employer or commissioning party.

I respectfully disagree with Lordstan that the most one can say is that other photographers took some Thompson agency images. There is no evidence at all that Thompson took a single image after he started his agency. Quite to the contrary, The New York Times made it a point to note that Thompson was not an "expert cameraman" and that the success of his business depended on "able associates."

By the way, I actually sold all of my Thompson portraits today while contributing to this thread (to a fellow board member), so this opinion was not in my economic interest. It's just something I've thought about for many years.

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by sphere and ash

I've been thinking about the sentence, "the gold-border portraits are attributed to him because they alone are copyrighted under his name," and it doesn't make sense. Just because you hold a copyright doesn't mean that you're the artist. All it means is that Thompson was the employer or commissioning party.

I think we are saying the same thing here. The story about the boat race clearly shows that photos were published under his name that he did not take.

Originally Posted by sphere and ash

I respectfully disagree with Lordstan that the most one can say is that other photographers took some Thompson agency images. There is no evidence at all that Thompson took a single image after he started his agency. Quite to the contrary, The New York Times made it a point to note that Thompson was not an "expert cameraman" and that the success of his business depended on "able associates."

Well. I can understand your point. I think we are talking about semantics here. Having success "depending on able body associates" is not the same as not taking any photos at all. If he took only 1%, or for that matter even only 1, of the photos then the statement in the Obit is still true. I hold by my conclusion in that there is no doubt that others took photos for him, but there is nothing stated or implied that he never took ANY.

All of this is, of course, focusing on the minutiae of semantics. The reality is that Thompson photos are pretty great regardless of who took them. Considering that many seem to share the same aesthetic, it is likely that he had one main photographer who did the bulk of his work.

[TCMA]

Originally Posted by sphere and ash

Edited to add: just saw the New York Times obituary. I don't think we're going to get a clearer statement than this: "Many people naturally assumed that Mr. Thompson was, or had been, an expert cameraman himself, but such was not the case." Thanks for finding it, Andrew.

No problemo. Totally in agreement that the vast majority of Paul Thompson stamped photos were not shot by him. Still, the obit indicates that he did a shoot with Mark Twain and the Smithsonian article I linked to previously claims the copyrights for the T205 portraits alone are under his name. This is all certainly worthy of further investigation:






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk