Hartford City Hall is a magical place for with me and my camera.  I have for years been able to access the building on quite Sunday mornings when I am all alone save for a security guard who never seems to bother me.  I have an extensive body of work I‘ve done at City Hall with both my 5×7” Deardorff and my 7×17” Phillips cameras, each using large Black & White film.  There will be a link to the Hartford City Hall portfolio later in this text should you have interest in viewing other imagery from City Hall.

   Recently I have reconnected with many graduates from my class of 1970 Rocky Hill High School, so many special people, several who now own some of my Black & White images !!  Bonnie is the latest to acquire some of my photography.  She has become a good friend again, after we each raised three children in different, yet nearby parts of Connecticut. Bonnie and I were elementary school classmates all the way through high school graduation in our small town.  Through social media Bonnie became interested in my photography, in particular the Hartford City Hall portfolio. She wanted to acquire an image from City Hall but could not settle on just one, so she ended up choosing the two images featured in this month’s Blog.  Bonnie’s middle son is an accomplished architect and I often wondered if that played into her interest and appreciation of Hartford City Hall.  The actual selection process she went through is note worthy and is central to this month’s Blog.

   The images Bonnie chose from my website are both “right handed” images.  By that I mean each image is weighted to the right side, as so many of my images are.   People raised in the Western Hemisphere naturally read from left to right.  Therefore, rules of composition suggest we “enter” a photograph from the lower left side and our eye travels around visual images from left to right and bottom to top finding important points. The hope is any image generates enough interest to continue “circling” the image absorbing more subtleties of the composition. The longer someone stays with an image, the more nuances are seen and appreciated.

   When Bonnie chose the two images seen in the opening photographs, I asked if she would be hanging them side by side in her home?  She indicated they belong together on the same wall, so, I offered a suggestion.  Bonnie listened and checked to my experience and reasoning.  Because both images were right side weighted, I suggested we could “flip” the negative so a subtle direction of flow rather than the hard line of the railing is what is first seen entering the photograph from the lower left.  This flipping of the negative will work so long as there is no lettering in the image.  See the accompanying image and what happens when the negative is flipped where there are letters or words of any kind.  It’s exactly what happens when you look into a mirror, the pattern on your shirt will be reversed, if there is lettering it becomes unacceptable.   

   By flipping the negative with this image it became “easier” to enter the image on the lower left and travel around the image in a pleasing circular path.   I suggested the lighter of the two images be the first one of the two seen, again because it is easier to enter into a lighter image while the 2nd image had darker tonalities on the extreme right side, the idea being the dark tonalities would subtlety prevent the eye from leaving the photograph, instead circling back around the photograph to take in more information.   

   While these seem like very minor points, museums regularly sequence a series of photographs with the same philosophy I shared in this Blog.  Just as with a singular image, the photographer designs a composition to create impact and secondary points of interest to support the focus of the image.  The same holds true for a “museum curator” who sequences a body of photographs so as to best portray the body of work in a pleasing flow from left to right.

   Looking at these two photographs in their final presentation, both in composition, tonalities and the circular flow that is created by the side by side pairing Bonnie has chosen the two Hartford City Hall images that perfectly belong beside one another.  The sweeping architecture of all 4 floors, the contrasting tonalities the Black and White process can portray has been as rewarding an experience for me as I hope remains so in Bonnie’s home.  In fact, writing this Blog together with Bonnie’s selection of these two images prompted me to show these two City Hall images on my website as they were prepared to be displayed in Bonnie’s home.  One could say by flipping the negative the image is no longer literal and true to City Hall. Art, is rarely realistic or literal !!  

    In previous Story Behind Every Photograph Blogs I’ve explained if one were to visit Hartford City Hall the initial impression is one of very light and airy walls of granite and marble.  For a piece of photographic film the contrast range is so great many areas would be portrayed as very light with very deep and nearly black areas.  Such is the case with the first photograph, sun is streaming in from a side window while the bottom floor is considerably darker.  Managing this amount of contrast in the tonalities seen in this image requires years of experience and knowledge of controlling tonalities in film exposure and development.  Another interesting side bar to this image, when you see a potential image before you, it is always from the vantage point of your eyes.  Getting the camera and lens to that exact viewpoint, particularly with a large bulky camera requiring a tripod many times is impossible.  Walking around City Hall I leaned over the railing seen in the photograph and saw 3 floors of stairs descending and thought what a wonderful composition that could be!  I don’t give in too easily and before I knew it my 7 lb. Deardorff camera and $2000.00 wide-angle lens were attached to the tripod which was soon wrapped and secured around the “outside” of the railing with bungee cords.  As I recall, it took nearly a 1/2 hour to compose and focus the camera from that vantage point, myself having to lean over the railing to do so.  Lastly, the view camera has the capability to alter the areas of sharp focus, in the case of this image about 10 inches in front of the lens to the floor at least 30 feet or more from the lens is in sharp focus, quite remarkable!  My understanding is Bonnie’s son was quite taken with the clarity and design of the images, that is a product of large film’s ability to resolve the most subtle of detail and of course the majestic architecture of Hartford City Hall.

Link to my Hartford City Hall images  website page.

   Please stay safe, responsible to others and healthy so we all can enjoy a return to normalcy.