Further exploring the 1955-1959 timeframe,I found a few sleeves in Jessica Fong’s Collection of Dardis negatives with the “Boxing, April 26, 1957” written on them. No further information about schedules nor athletes.
These negatives are all shot as 4×5″. It’s most likely, from the angles and perspectives, including lack of positional movement, that Joel’s camera was on a tripod. Only major movement I can detect is panoramic and one case where the tilt failed. The raw negatives all show the tell-tale signs of being shot in a film holder.
Ohhh, the challenges of shooting with a view camera compared to shooting with a press camera designed for photojournalistic work !
I’m showing the images as found across the three sleeves with some slight order changes. They got mixed up over time, not taking anything away about their power.
In the image above, the tilt adjustment on the tripod must have collapsed.
Different match below !
And two more images from a third match.
Single image from a fourth match as far as I can tell.
The last two images have quite a different contrast and feel. Not totally clear to me if this is because of development process, or if Joel changed film type.
The vast majority of these images were contact printed on 4×5″ paper, these prints were found in the sleeves with the negatives.
Cheers !
Finding Joel Pahl Dardis 