Sports photography question

[MooseDog]

Originally Posted by billyb

Moose,
So you think it was done over several pitches??? Hard to tell with half a photo, sorry. I thought VanOeyen was tinkering with speed shutters, thought I read that some where, but I may be wrong.
Re checked , nothing about speed shutters, scratch that information.
It is obvious now that the photos were taken on different pitches. Thanks Moose
So Moose, you think it started in the 50s???

So like Griffins said, most of the mainstream photography of that time was done with bulky 4x5 cameras. Long lenses weren't very common either so the photographer had to get pretty close to the action to get shots.

From your scan you can clearly see the edges of the glass negatives, so the total images was made from four separate images. you can easily fit four 4x5 negatives on one 8x10 sheet of photo paper (most common size).

Considering a batter might see 30-40 pitches in a 9-inning game, if the photographer was concentrating on Ruth he might have had that many shots to choose from. Perhaps he had an idea that people would see the composite image as one at-bat. After all, photography was relatively new those using the tools were free to be experimental and people were easily fooled back then.