Class Assignment, Box 91, 1949

The box with negatives of Nancy Reynolds came with few more subjects. It’s pretty much the norm since Joel has been shuffling negatives around over the years.

The rest of the subjects seem to be sort of class assignments for a photography course Joel is still signed up for.

First group are a number of images of a spilled photographic chemical crystals. It’s an exercise in lighting, reflection control of shiny surfaces, and keeping the focus in check over the full image.

Hydroquinone is a clean-working and non-staining compound typically found in the majority of photographic developers. It oxidizes easily both in solution and as crystals. It’s most common use is, along with Metol, to change the silver halides to elemental silver.

Next subject is a agricultural or industrial complex of sorts. A hopper style structure is visible at the outside of the corrugated sheet metal building. The tin plates are still shiny, so the building must be fairly new when Joel photographed this.

It’s quite an organic shape and I really like the portrait style imagery. The location of this building, or the status of said building, is currently unknown.

EDIT:

After posting this image to the Stockton History and Memories of Stockton Facebook pages, I received two important clues.

First one from David Wilma identifying the pipe structure as dust cyclones and air intakes.

Second clue was from Rodney Leingang offering Sutter and Alpine as the location of a mill.

Checking out the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1950, we do find Alpine Mill and Lumber Co at that location with the note that “waste is removed by blowers”. So far this seems to be an acceptable match, and one that is sufficiently close to Joel’s photography range.

On the map there’s a lumber shed in front of the blowers, that explains why Joel is photographing above a roof line.

Last three images are baseball related.

There are three more negative boxes for 1949, and a different pace in photography.

Cheers !