dear bird

photos from the LBJ Presidential Library

February is over! I can't believe tomorrow it will be March. Since I dedicated a whole week to Valentine's Day, I thought it would be nice to post about a last minute assignment that I worked on that week. On Feb. 13, our Supervisory Archivist Claudia Anderson talked to press about the 1934 courtship letters between LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson. The letters have been released to the public, check them out here if you're interested.

color correction

Oh, the color correction debate! This is something I've been wanting to touch on for a while, since I deal with this problem everyday at work. The big question surrounds the digitization of archival photographs and whether they should be left "as is" or color corrected "as it should be?" Now, the real problem here is when you scan a color negative and say it's "as is," meaning that the scan you've got is a representation of what is on the negative, you're wrong. Here's why... Something I think archivists aren't taking into account (especially if they are not scanning the images themselves), is the accuracy of the scanner to auto-detect color. If you are wanting a full frame image you have to crop it yourself. (Editorial note: The scanner I use at work is an EPSON V700 Photo Scanner). When you determine the area to be scanned, it automatically color corrects the image and selects true blacks and whites based on the crop. So if you crop in or out or leave in the black border around the image, you will end up with three totally different looking images. Case in point: the images below... The first was done before I started working at the LBJ Library. The second has been rescanned and edited based on a darkroom print of the same image hanging up in AV Archives (made before they went digital around 2002). Now, being that NARA's definition for digitizing for public access includes "quality control of digital copies and metadata" and "providing public access to the material via online delivery of reliable and authentic copies." I would say the image on the left is not reliable or authentic to the image on the negative; the water in Oregon is obviously not cyan. When rescanned and minimally edited, everyone looks peachy. I didn't get the cyan color cast at all the second time. So which is the reliable and authentic image that should be delivered to the public as an accurate representation of this negative?

D782-9a. Photo by Robert Knudsen. Lady Bird Johnson on a trail in the Multnomah Falls National Scenic Area near Troutdale, Oregon on June 27, 1968.

photog friday: dan winters

Photog Friday is back on track!

Dan Winters. Last Friday I got to meet Dan Winters! He was Icon No. 16 for the photography series hosted by the Austin Center for Photography. It was great to get an in-depth look and hear the stories behind some of his most famous images. Best part besides getting to meet him? The fact that he had to turn down the lights in the auditorium until we could only see his face occasionally lit by his computer screen because he was nervous. All photographers are the same in this way. We can turn our camera to the world, but when it is turned on us we hide. Where do we go? Who we are is hidden in our photographs.

The photograph below, is the closest thing I have to anything resembling a Dan Winters photograph, or even channeling him. I love this photo of First Lady Barbara Bush. This was in the Green Room before going onstage for "The Enduring Legacies of America's First Ladies: Reflections of First Ladies" on November 15, 2012. It was the LBJ Presidential Library's final program of the season and one of the highlights of my photography career. Here, she was talking to David Valdez, who was the Bush's photographer during their time at the White House. I love the look on her face, happy to see an old friend, very regal and proud, like a mother looking at a son.

First Lady Barbara Bush - November 15, 2012