The Boat Lullabies

the orphans slide show is great! i'd like to say the photographers had a great eye, but man i've gone through barrels of slides and methinks your selection is just stellar... some of those photos are just amazing... and it's amazing you could see that in 'em... great stuff!

Thanks Steve. I know what you mean- You're looking at some of the best out of the maybe 6000-7000 slides from my collection that I looked through over the last week or so. I think Martin Johnson who's responsible for about half the photos in orphans (I should really put a little mj next to all his photos) really had a good eye. That said, he also took lots (and I mean lots) of pretty unexecptional photos. I probably have about 4000 slides taken by him of which maybe 200-250 or so are interesting and of those maybe 50-75 are really, really good. So does he qualify as a "real" photographer? I'm not sure if his good/bad ratio is that much different than someone like Winogrand who left behind over a million negatives. Of course, Winogrand did his own editing- I'm editing Martin Johnson so much how does my input/eye factor in to that equation? I like to think of Square America as a purely curatorial endeavour rather than some kind of personal art project but it's probably somewhere in between (in between being a place you're undoubtably quite familiar with!) but it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately without coming to any real conclusions.

I have a much more difficult time finding good shots of slides than I do photos. I can go through hundreds and maybe find a couple. I have come to the conclusion that slides were meant to be viewed in a machine, so the owner strived for perfection. If there were any weird shots (like what we look for), the owner would discard them or not even have them printed up to begin with. I mean, why flash a double exposure on the big screen?

Angelica- I think you're right about slides. I think people who shot with slide film tended to be more "serious" photographers- camera club members and the like so you're much more likely to get photos like you see in magazines like Popular Photography- landscapes, close-ups of flowers, etc... all well executed but none of them particularly interesting. I have a basic rule when looking at slides- any photos of flowers and I quit looking immediately. I have very little patience when digging through a box of slides whereas with prints I'll dig through to the bottom of just about any box no matter how boring in hopes of finding something interesting.