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The War to End all Wars I met a gentleman who is engaged in a research project on a famous photographer. He is trying to determine if any wartime stereoviews can be attributed to this person. It may prove an impossible task, as most surviving images carry little or no identification. The scope of stereo images produced during the war runs into the thousands, probably tens of thousands. However, in reviewing my collection, he found a significant degree of overlap with his own. Does this suggest there were fewer original commercial images producedthan we believe, or were the more interesting ones produced in great volume? Not surprisingly, the image catalog of Richard themselves is of very high quality, serial numbered and labeled. These images can be traced. Styles of some other producers are apparent as well. Whether it is recognizable serial number sequences, or even familiar hand writing of labels. There must have been a number of individuals who personally labeled thousands of slides. Then there are the illegal copies as well. How many original images were "borrowed" and sold by unscrupulous vendors? Even within my own collection we identified different generations of the same image, produced with drastically different levels of quality. To bring it all together and produce a definitive study today would be both time consuming and financially unrewarding. Its not likely to happen. |
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