Photography: Greatest photographs not taken

[earlywynnfan]

Originally Posted by sphere and ash

Tom—I was actually referring to a different photograph, but the Conlon image of a player leading off first against the Cubs in 1908 is another example. I actually own the photograph, so I have a real incentive to push for the Merkle identification, but I believe very strongly that it’s Herzog and not Merkle.

I hadn’t thought of some of your examples, but like them all.

Ken—here’s the Homer in the Gloamin’.

Thanks, I was more thinking of the hit itself, but I know that's a lot to ask

[SAllen2556]

This was 1910 wasn't it? Not really a famous moment, but this was the one I thought of when you mentioned famous action shots.

I'd be curious if any photos of the 1919 World Series show any "fishy" moments. Seems like there'd have to be one.

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[sphere and ash]

Yes, it was 1910, but Conlon didn’t photograph the play because it was significant; it’s significant because Conlon photographed it. Despite nearly forty years taking baseball photographs, Conlon never photographed a newsworthy moment; he was primarily a portrait photographer.

The 1919 World Series helps support my conjecture: there isn’t an image of Morrie Rath being hit by Cicotte’s first pitch. During the 1920 World Series, by comparison, there are photographs of the triple play and the grand slam home run; the entire game was chronicled.

[steve B]

I don't know camera history well enough, but I suspect large film rolls and auto advance weren't available until well after 35mm became the standard.

I can give a bit of a glimpse at why any important event from the 70's on was probably photographed.


A friend of mine worked at a camera shop that had a number of pros as clients. One did semi freelance work for one of the Boston newspapers. They'd give him a list of shots they wanted for articles, plus if anything special happened they'd pay extra.

It seemed like a cool job, but after looking for the photo credits I was amazed at how many nice shots he got. So I asked how.

The answer was that he always brought 3 cameras that had auto advance and worked from either a 1000 or 3000 image roll of film. He often ran two at once, and took somewhere around 10,000 images each home game.

He'd usually have the rolls developed and remove the shots the globe wanted keeping the rest. So if say "Yaz batting" was on the list they'd get every frame he took during his at bats.

When something special and unexpected happened he usually gave the paper the entire rolls of film undeveloped. I forget what it was exactly, but on particular one he actually left the game and brought the film directly to the paper. They developed it and had the picture in the afternoon edition, well before anyone else. yes, he was paid pretty well for that one.


I'd love to find his file of negatives, assuming the weren't tossed out at some point.

[Runscott]

Well-said Steve.

Most of the greatest photos taken in the early 1900's were not of famous plays, but rather of famous players. The cameraman set up to maximize his chance for success, but we've all done that and ended up with garbage. In today's age of iphone photos, many people forget the time that was spent setting up a shot - lighting, depth-of-field, etc. for a roll of film that gave you 24 or 36 shots and you had to wait a while to get the prints back, and then you had to hope they didn't screw them up. If you look up what Ansel Adams did to set up a shot you'll get the extreme version, but a Charles Conlon effort was much closer to Adams than it was to a photographer even from the 1970's, much less a millennial with an iphone.

[GKreindler]

I've gotta imagine that there are still some amazingly historic photos out there that will come to the public eye soon, whether it's through private collections or photo morgues...they just gotta...I hope.

That being said, I'd say the Chapman Mays incident is definitely a biggie in terms of significance. I've definitely never seen any shots from that game, but considering there's no shortage of photographs from the 1920 Yankees season (especially because of Ruth), I feel like somebody must have taken a shot of it, Afterall, when the beaning happened, Ruth was sitting on an astounding 42 home runs, and the Yankees were in the middle of a pennant race with Cleveland and the White Sox. So with the former coming to New York for the last time that season, it had to be considered an important series.

I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud. I bet that photos were taken of the incident, but maybe they're long gone. And that's whether they were never published by any papers, or were and the negatives/prints were trashed at some point.

FWIW, I would also LOVE to see an image of Rath getting beaned during the 1919 World Series. What saddens me is that we know that less than twenty years later, having a photograph of the first pitch in the World Series (many times the first pitch for each game) was often done. And, at least by '36 or so, those photographs were often taken from behind home plate with the outfield in clear view. Can you imagine how cool it would have looked to have a photograph like that of Rath facing Cicotte? Even if he got plunked with Eddie's second offering, I just think the significance is insane.

Pair that with a photo from the Chapman beaning and you have two of the major hinge points to the coming of Babe Ruth's celebrity.

Man, I love this game. And for sh!t sure I'd love to paint either one.

[sphere and ash]

I don’t believe that the absence of any significant, newsworthy moment prior to October 1920, nor their ubiquity after that date, has anything to do with automatic film loading or advancing. I believe it has something to do with technology, but that technology already existed by 1917; there was just no need for it in baseball photography until October 1920. There is something else that created that need.

There was at least one photographer at the Chapman-Mays game, from the New York Daily News. I think it’s likely, however, that he left before the beaning, either because he had what he needed or because he had to meet a deadline for an evening edition.

One can never say that no photograph of a historic moment before October 1920 will appear because of the problem of induction, but I think it is extremely unlikely. I tried to comb the Daily News’ photo morgue to see if they had a photograph of Chapman, but couldn’t gain admittance. I’ve been through all of the Daily News’ paper archive for 1920, however, and there was nothing about it, so I doubt it’s there.