Joel left quite a few press negative boxes behind with 1942 and 1943 “process by” dates, but pencil dates between 1946 and 1948.
Looks like Joel had quite some boxes in stock prior to his WWII service, and back in Stockton at the Stockton Junior College, he’s using this stock up first.
It shouldn’t come as a major surprise, that once back in Stockton Junior College, Joel is photographing artwork again, as this seems to be one of his assignments in photography class.
All negatives found in this box, represent a lot of 3D artwork with only one image of flat artwork, the latter an exercise in monograms. The lid of the box does state SJC Art 1946
Joel is experimenting with angle with this subject.
Quite a few of these 3D artwork pieces have a flowing architectural feel to them.
The pointe shoes came out real nice.
Joel is getting better at putting contrasting backgrounds up that add texture and keep the attention.
The above image was majorly overexposed and the image below was underexposed. Both images needed digital processing to render them intelligently. The advantages of digital technology with instant feedback.
Would love to hold the above wood carving in my hands, simply beautiful.
Another case where Joel overexposed the top image to the point of solarisation and underexposed the bottom image. Needed major digital processing to recover.
Looking at these two images, there’s a point in the reflected symmetry and the contrast between solarized and normal image. It’s growing on me.
The rest of the wire-frame artwork pieces might have come from few artists, these are variations on a theme we’ve equally explored in the 1942 SJC art.
The last image covers a monogram exercise, the artist is Don Marvin, Art 20A. This image was equally overexposed and required digital processing to recover.
This was a lot to take in one blog post. There’s clearly talent in both conceptual design and hands-on execution in the 1946 group of artist at SJC.
Few more observations.
Although the negative box is an Eastman FIlm box, the vast majority of the negatives in this box are from the Ansco brand. The Ansco boxes however were flip-top boxes and getting negatives in and out is simply difficult. So another reason for Joel to consolidate more negatives in a Eastman Film box than what the box is designed for.
There were no light leaks in this series of images and the film holder with crack is no longer in service. It’s quite possible that at this point in time Joel retired the old Zeiss Trona press camera and switched to the Graflex Super D camera. The latter allows for looking at the object on ground glass till one pushes the shutter button. Focussing this way is a lot simpler than guesstimating distance on a scale. That’s right, the Graflex Super D was a large format SLR (SIngle Reflex Camera)
We’ll continue the journey and see what more Joel has in store for us upon his return from Europe.
Cheers !
Finding Joel Pahl Dardis 