This sleeve contains a variety of formats. The vast majority is 3 1/4″ x 5.5″, also known as 122 format roll film. This was a popular format in the beginning of the 20th century. (CIrca 1905 and later)
I believe however Joel may have enlarged 120 format roll film onto the 3 1/4″ wide format rather than using an antique camera to do the job. And we’ve seen from other sleeves containing large negatives, that Joel at times enlarged 120 film format onto 4.5″ wide roll film for an exact multiplication by a factor of 2.
There’s a single 4×5″ negative in this batch that’s a crop of one of the larger film negatives.
As for subject, it seems Joel went on a stroll with this camera and photographed doors, window displays and a back lot or an alley. Quite a few locations are on Hunter Street. The timeframe is June 1974, and the few posters in windows for July 1974 boxing and wrestling events, support this date.
First negative depicts the Masonic Lodge on E. Main Street.
Joel’s reflection can just be seen in the front door window. There’s a good amount of perspective distortion on this image, Joel was shooting upward, and as such, the distortion is unavoidable. With a view camera with rise and fall, the perspective could be straightened out.
As for 37 and 45 N Hunter Street, these buildings were right across the courthouse. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that both of these buildings were law offices.
From a style and finish perspective, these were either built well after WWII, most likely around the same time the third courthouse was built in 1962-1964.
A bit of research also showed that both of these buildings were demolished in 2014, and the location is now absorbed in the fourth courthouse of Stockton.
It’s quite sad to see the demolishing of brick buildings that are of such a young age in USA.
There’s one barbershop on N Hunter Street that was photographed a number of times. If one looks closely at the window, there are different posters displayed, the return time is different, yes, even the shadows are different.
Joel had a little theme going on here.
The Star barber shop was owned by George Takeuchi. They were in 1967 on E. Washington street. EDIT. After publishing this on my facebook page, I was advised that the Star Barber Shop was on 440 E. Market Street according to the the Stockton Polk City Directory. Daniel thought that the store was there till 1987 or so. At that time the whole block was razed to make room for a parking garage.
The Mayfair Apartments are still not repaired after the devastating 4 alarm fire of June 6, 2017.
This series of images ends with a few shots of a driveway or backlot. Hard to figure out as there are no real references as to location.
And Joel made a crop and enlargement of a section of the above negatives onto a 4×5″ negative for print.
The diagonal pattern suggests a photograph through a chain link fence. There’s clearly more information in the shadows. But it is quite possible Joel added the diagonal pattern as a screen during the enlarging process to make the image more interesting. He was often experimenting.
All these negatives in this blogpost are from the Jessica Fong Collection of Dardis negatives.
Cheers !
Finding Joel Pahl Dardis 