Finding Joel Pahl Dardis

Month: May 2022

  • Three Girls, Box 18, 1946

    Three Girls, Box 18, 1946

    That’s what’s written on the cover of press negative box 18. It also says June-July 1946. I believe this was somewhere at COP, and it is also possible more than one photographer was involved that day. It’s all an exercise in grouping and angles. And fighting the California sun. Squinted eyes and stressed faces, not…

  • Family, Pool, Box 17, 1946

    Family, Pool, Box 17, 1946

    Box 17 contains 12 negatives. There are few names on the cover of this box, there’s just no certain way to attach a name to a face as that relationship is lost to non-family members. Yes, Joel is photographing a few Pahl family members. Some of the faces we’ve seen before on his 22nd and…

  • More etc., box 16, 1946

    More etc., box 16, 1946

    Second significant subject in box 16 was more track and field. A different day than the pole vaults we covered few blog posts past, witness the clouds in the sky. And then there are few more portrait shots from the swimming pool area and we’ll keep the outlier for last. The pole vault and the…

  • Portraits, Box 16, 1946

    Portraits, Box 16, 1946

    The vast majority of the negatives in box 16 are portraits and I believe this the result of a class assignment. There are portraits indoors and outdoors, some of the outdoors portraits utilize a reflector in an attempt to enhance facial lighting. There are a total of four young ladies in the picture, I don’t…

  • Track, etc., Box 15, 1946

    Track, etc., Box 15, 1946

    Few images from a track event in 1946. From a photographer’s perspective, Joel is learning how to freeze images in motion. This would be perfectly in line with a class objective, and it is a necessary skill for a photographer to grasp all the concepts required to freeze motion. What is not clear to me…

  • Team Sports, Box 15, 1946

    Team Sports, Box 15, 1946

    We’ve seen Joel photograph basketball and football before. He’s covering the team plays at COP. Photographing sports is difficult, even more so then than now. It takes a lot of practice and there was no instant feedback. The photographer had to wait till development time to gauge the quality of his or her images. Photographing…

  • Fashion Event, Box 15, 1946

    Fashion Event, Box 15, 1946

    Box 15 contains 35 negatives with multiple subjects and some miscellaneous press format negatives. Topic of this blog post is a 1946 Fashion Event at COP. We know from Pacific publications there were fashion clubs and a yearly fashion event most years. Let’s take a look what was considered fashionable in 1946 for ladies. Location…

  • Large Color Slides, 9/5/1948

    Large Color Slides, 9/5/1948

    Since we broke the chronology yesterday with the June 6, 1943 and 1948 birthday images of Joel (22nd and 27th birthday respectively), let’s stay in 1948 for a little longer. I found these 4 medium frame 2 1/4″ x 2 1/2″ image size slides in an envelope tucked between boxes and these don’t fit in…

  • June 6, 1948, Box 14

    June 6, 1948, Box 14

    Jumping ahead a few years, and breaking the chronology, this box is part of the expired negatives that Joel used up prior to buying new stock after his return from WWII service. June 6, 1948 is Joel’s 27th birthday and it appears that quite a few of the people present on June 6, 1943, are…

  • Events, Box 13, 1946

    Events, Box 13, 1946

    I realize that “Events” is a broad denominator, but without comparable images from Naranjado 1946 or without any corroborating stories in the Pacific Review around this time period, we can’t be absolutely sure which event(s) are depicted below. But “events” are definitely something Joel documents through photography rather than participating, or so it seems. All…