Henry Yee Photos and Photos in General - Skeptical

[steve B]

Most film has datecodes. So if the dupe negatives were done much later, with new stock it would be possible to fiure out the actual date of the dupe negative.
http://www.film-center.com/dates.html
That's mostly about movie film, but still film usually has codes too.


Much duplication isn't done all that well, and the image loses a bit of focus, and often some contrast as well. There are modern systems that do much better, laser scans and such, but the old ways generated a slightly lossy image even with a good operator. tere's a tiny bit of distortion caused by the film substrate itself. A contact print emulsion to emulsion would be the way to go, but for most places it would be too much work. The smaller the original, the easier it would be to tell. Blowing up from a 35mm negative to an 8x10 negative would take a some skill to have it come out clearly. Doing it from a professionals medium or large format negative would be easier, and if the original was a very large format camera like one that actually took 8x10 negatives it would be hard to tell the dupe since the person working to make the duplicate would be quite skilled.

Steve B

[drc]

Copies of negatives don't have the same image quality as the original. Some copies of negatives are quite rough. So looking at the quality of the image on both the negative and the paper photograph is part of determining if it's an original.

Some old photos have images that are so detailed and crystal clear, they had to have been made from an original negative.

The only problem is a photo can be original yet was shot out of focus or at a great distance. Original sports action shots can be grainy or slightly blurred. If I had a photo that I knew was from the year, but the image was rough so I couldn't say for certain the image was made from the original negative, I'd all it vintage 1933 (for year example) and not say whether or not it was original (fromt he original negative). If you don't know, you don't make it up. And for the collector, the old age itself has value.

The 1913 T200 Fatima team cards, which are photographs, are obviously vintage, but the images appear second generation. So that's an example where a photo image isn't original but the photo is vintage. As they were mass produced, real photo baseball cards are more likely not to have been made from duplicate and copy images.

The negatives themselves can be dated roughly as physical objects. For example a 1910 negative would be glass, and an 1870 negative would be glass with a different thickness and cut. Modern slides, which are also used to make photographic prints, commonly have the date of manufacture printed on them-- so they're easy to date.

One thing to realize is that age itself is part of a photo's value. Say you find an 1860 cabinet card of Abraham Lincoln and someone tells you the image is second generation. As President of the United States they were making lots and various kinds of photos of him, and the images were sometimes copies of other images. You may be bummed the images isn't first generation, but the cabinet card will still have value due to it being from 1860. It's still a Civil War era antique.

[thekingofclout]

A photo off a dupe neg compared to a photo taken off the original negative is often Day & Night.

Take a picture of your dog with a 35mm and develop it. Now take a picture of that picture with the same camera and develop that. Compare the two photos and come to your own conclusion.

Regards, Jimmy

[Ladder7]

Originally Posted by thekingofclout

Take a picture of your dog... *snip* Compare the two photos and come to your own conclusion.

Regards, Jimmy

Hot damn, He's right

[thekingofclout]

Originally Posted by Ladder7

Hot damn, He's right

You RULE Goombah!

[Exhibitman]

You're right Jimmy, but I've also seen some nice 2nd generation shots. Heck, N172s are photos of photos. A professional photographer working in a studio can produce a very nice picture that may be deceptive to a casual onlooker, esp. if the edges are trimmed down as they might be for a newspaper use. And one can also produce a nice sharp image years later from an original negative. That's why one does not confidently buy a high grade Ruth Ray-O-Print without the negative.

[drc]

That's true about photos of photos. I know the Old Judges are second generation because I'm familiar with the period photography technology-- and what a photographer could and couldn't do. I haven't had an Old Judge in hand for years, so I haven't looked closely at an Old Jude image in a while. I don't know how clear they are.

Many 1800s team photo with a fancy design-- composite, special designs, etc-- involve taking a bunch of original photos, rearranging the images in the design and re-photographing them. They didn't have photoshop back then and that's how they made those designs. See below for an example.

http://www.cycleback.com/1800s/Image188.jpg

You can debate whether or not the cabinet is original. One one hand it involves rephotographing player photos. On the other hand, the final result is so different and unusual, it is original in that sense. In other words, in incorporates second generation images into an original design. And lastly, the photographer may have photographed the players individually with the intent of making this fancy team design. The individual photos were just means to his artistic end ... The photo is definitely vintage, from the 1800s, and is worth a few to several hundred dollars whichever your opinion of the originality of the image.