McGraw (and others) photo question

[Bicem]

Does the popular McGraw pic below originate from a Carl Horner or Ben Falk photo?

(stolen scans)

this postcard would suggest Horner...



this program would suggest Falk...

[rhettyeakley]

If I had to guess I would say Horner. It is less of a stretch to say the scorebook makers made a mistake as opposed to Horners' own studio as they were piecing together that display for the postcard.
-Rhett

[Bicem]

makes sense Rhett... guess they just assumed the McGraw was by Falk since for sure the Matty and I believe the Bowerman are both Falk pics.

One more question... does anyone know who the photographer for these was?





Thanks!

[Kawika]

Jeff: Best I can do is make an educated guess about McGraw. My Matty cabinet is definitely from the Falk studio. The McGraw roto has an index number in the bottom right corner which I can't correlate with anything. This link gives the best write-up about Falk that I could find: http://tinyurl.com/y5nze5t Seems he was primarily a photographer of theatrical subjects although there were obviously some ballplayers such as Matty and Joe's Astoria Giants and maybe McGinnity. It is reasonable but speculative to say that it is more likely that Horner's studio would get things right than Harry M. Stevens. The Sporting Life composites are generally understood, at least as far as I know, to be Horner photos yet in the 1903 example the Matty depicted is Falk's image. So the logic could work the other way, too; maybe the scorecard is correct and the McGraw might have been acquired by Horner from Falk for your 1904 team composite. Short answer: I don't know. Bitchen' postcard anyway.




(Labeled "Photos by Falk" beneath McGraw)


McGinnity cabinet image e-mailed to me by secret N54er, file name was "McGinnity-Falk", no verification proferred.

[Bicem]

Thanks David! Looking at your program it looks like the placement of "photos by Falk" could be taken as just meaning the 3 photos at the bottom. We know Matty and McGinnity are for sure, and I'd bet money the Luther Taylor is too.

Another observation is that it seems Falk preferred to position his subjects at an angle where as Horner preferred a more straight to the camera pose. Here's the Horner Luther Taylor for comparison...



Thanks again for the info/pics!

[Kawika]

Originally Posted by Bicem

Another observation is that it seems Falk preferred to position his subjects at an angle where as Horner preferred a more straight to the camera pose.

I think that is a very telling observation. Reading up on Falk I learned that he was considered progressive for his day in the posing and positioning of his subjects plus his use of backlighting. That might lend itself to thinking that the McGraw photo was taken by Horner. I'm in over my head at this point; one of the photography experts might have more to say.