I can't get enough of photographs that speak to changing modes and mechanisms of representation, reproduction, preservation, etc etc.-- a contemporary conversation, but certainly not a new one, and so much of it rolled into the history of photography. And so my favorite photographs are photographs of photographs, or photographs of paintings--photographs as means of preserving earlier representations and ushering them forward, often through translation from one media to another. Here I presume it is an ambrotype (one can make out the square edges of the glass plate if one looks closely) that is being held up with a clip to be carried forward as tintype--a much cheaper , quicker, and accessible form, with ferrotypists commonly working at fairs and carnivals as well as itinerantly, via carts or wagons on the street. And I love this one formally as well as conceptually, with all of the seams of the set up showing, as it were. Plus a pretty great portrait to begin with, with the expression on this young man's face seeming as if aware of being dislocated in time, and none too easy about it either.
3 1/4" x 2 1/8" and in good condition.
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