Iceland Part Two

Part two of my Iceland trip, the north.  We spent about half our trip in the south and half in the north.  We probably did a little less technically in the north because a decent part of it was spent at the amazing family reunion.  We still saw quite a lot though, but some things had to be missed.

Goðafoss, where the pagan idols were thrown away during 

Iceland's conversion to Christianity.

Dimmuborgir, this amazing lava formation park.

(For any Game of Thrones fans, the Wildling camp was shot here.)

Akureyrikirkja.

Puffins!  We went to Grimsey, to the Arctic Circle and there

are puffins everywhere!  I've seen puffins before,

but they're never not awesome.

Arctic Circle marker on Grimsey.

Laufás, where I worked for a few weeks in 2007.

It's a turf house that is run as a museum.

Looking down into the fjord that Akureyri sits on.

Icelandic horses at the family farm.

Munkaþverá.  The reunion was for descendants of people buried

at this church - my great-great grandparents.

Grund, where other's of the family are buried.

The magnificent sunset (around 11pm) outside of where the reunion was held.

There's my trip in a very small nutshell.  I could've shared so many other photos, but didn't want to 1) share too much of our trip and 2) get even further away from what this blog is supposed to be.

Next week I'll be back to having historical entries!  Like I said before my trip, they'll probably be Iceland related for a bit. :) 

Iceland Part One

I meant to have a post last week, but with getting back from Iceland and getting back into work, it didn't happen.  But!  I'll have two posts with my photos, and then we'll get back to regularly scheduled, historical blog posts.  Anything else will (hopefully) be supplementary, not taking the place of posts like it's become much much too often.

Here's from the first part of the trip, Reykjavik and various other places in the south.  Part 2 will be in the north.

The famous Viking boat sculpture in the Reykjavik harbor.

Statue of Jón Sigurðsson, across from the Alþing.

Hallgrimskirkja from the back/side.  The main church in Reykjavik.

In the sculpture garden at the Einar Jónsson Museum, with Hallgrimskirkja in the background.

This museum was wonderful.  I went to the sculpture garden last time, but didn't go in;

this time we went in and it was really worth it.

Waterfall in Þingvellir, where the first parliament was held and where the

North American and European plates are separating.

Þingvellirvatn.

Strokkur.  This is at the same location as Geysir, the first geyser,

but Geysir doesn't go off anymore and Strokkur does regularly.

Gullfoss.

A random waterfall we found on the way to Snæfellsnes.

Icelandic horses.  I don't know if you can tell from this photo, but Icelandic

horses are shorter than other horses.  They're a special breed that is kept isolated.

They also have their own gait that no other horse breed has.

A random beach on Snæfellsnes.

Snæfellsjökull (glacier).

Just some cool rocks and fog on the way north.

I tried to pick a variety of pictures that show how varied Iceland can look.  It's such a gorgeous country.  Next week - the north!

The Cottingley Fairies

            I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to pick this subject.  I’ve been interested in the Cottingley Fairy story since FairyTale: A True Story came out in 1997 (I would’ve guessed it was earlier than that, actually).  It just ticks all the right boxes for me: the right era, fairies, photos, a hoax.  It’s just great.  Like I said, I should’ve done this post earlier.

            In 1917, Frances Griffiths and her mother went to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousins, the Wrights, in Cottingley, near Bradford, in England.  Frances had grown up in South Africa, but due to World War One, her father was now in the army and she and her mother had to go live with family.  Frances was about ten, and her cousin, Elsie, was about sixteen.  They played together down by the Cottingley beck (stream) and would often come back filthy, much to their parents chagrin.  They claimed they were down at the beck playing with fairies.  One Saturday, they decided to borrow Arthur Wright’s Midg camera and “take a photo of the fairies they had been playing with all morning” (1).

            They came back from the beck a picture of Frances and some fairies.  Arthur knew that Elsie was an artist and liked drawing fairies and so thought the photo was faked somehow.  About a month later the girls borrowed the camera again and came back with a picture of Elsie and a gnome.  Again, Arthur thought it was faked, and didn’t let the girls borrow his camera anymore.  Polly Wright, though, believed her daughter’s and niece’s photos were real.

In mid-1919, Polly took the photos to a theosophy meeting.  Theosophy believes in finding divinity in the mysteries of nature.  Theosophy also believes that humanity is evolving towards perfection.  The photos fit in with these beliefs because they showed people being able to interact with “higher beings”, that were one of those mysteries of nature.

            Polly showed the photos to the speaker at the theosophy meeting, asking if they might be real; the speaker took them and showed them at the society’s conference a few months later.  At this conference Edward Gardner became interested in the photos.  Gardner sent the photos to the photographic expert Harold Snelling.  Snelling believed the negatives were authentic in that they photographed what was in front of them; he wouldn’t comment if the fairies were real though.  Gardner had Snelling clean up the negatives so they could be better printed and better analyzed.  Gardner sold the prints at his lectures.  The photos quickly spread through the spiritualist community.

            The photos were gaining an audience.  In 1920, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle heard of the photos from the editor of Light, a spiritualist publication.  Doyle had long been interested in mysticism and spiritualism; after the deaths of his wife, son, brother, brothers-in-law, and nephews all in a fairly short span, this interest deepened.  Doyle contacted Gardner about the photos to find out more about them.  Doyle then contacted Arthur and Elsie Wright, asking their permission to use the photos for an article he was writing.  Arthur agreed, but didn’t want to be paid for their use believing “if genuine, the images should not be ‘soiled’ by money” (3).

            Gardner was still trying to prove the authenticity of the photos.  He went to Kodak for a second opinion.  Kodak said the photos “showed no signs of being faked” but that “this could not be taken as conclusive evidence … that they were authentic photographs of fairies” and wouldn’t give a certificate of authenticity to them (4).  The photographic company Ilford also believed there was evidence of faking.  Doyle, too, was seeing if other people thought they were real.  He showed the photos to the psychical researcher Sir Oliver Lodge.  Lodge believed they were fake, sighting their “distinctly ‘Parisienne’ hairstyles” (5).

            In July 1920, Gardner went to Cottingley.  He brought two Kodak cameras and “secretly marked photographic plates” and wanted Elsie and Frances to take more photos (6).  By this time Frances was living in Scarborough with her parents, but she was invited back for the summer.  The weather was bad that summer and it wasn’t until August 19 that they were able to take more photos.  Polly Wright was with the girls, but they told her the fairies wouldn’t come out if others were around, so Mrs. Wright left.  The girls were then able to take three new photos.

            The new photos were carefully packaged and sent to Gardner in London.  Gardner was thrilled with the pictures and sent a telegram to this effect to Doyle who was lecturing in Australia.  Doyle replied, “When our fairies are admitted other psychic phenomena will find a more ready acceptance” (7).

            The article Doyle had been working on, and used the photos for, came out in The Strand around Christmas 1920.  The issue sold out in two days.  In the article, the Wrights were called the Carpenters, Elsie was called Iris, and Frances was called Alice.  Press coverage of Doyle’s article was mixed, but with a lot of “embarrassment and puzzlement” (8).

            In 1921, Doyle wrote another article for The Strand about other accounts of fairy sightings.  These articles formed the basis for his 1922 book, The Coming of the Fairies.  The second article and the book, too, had mixed receptions.

            In 1921, Gardner made his last trip to Cottingley.  Again he brought cameras and photographic plates, but he also brought the clairvoyant, Geoffrey Hodson.  This time the girls didn’t see any fairies and no photos were taken, but Hodson took a lot of notes about all the fairies he saw around.  By this point Elsie and Frances were tired of the fairies and just played along with Hodson “out of mischief” (9).  The girls grew up, married, and moved abroad, the Cottingley fairies left behind them.

            While mostly fading from view, the photos still popped up after this.  In 1945 Gardner’s book, Fairies: The Cottingley Photographs and Their Sequel, was published.  Still, criticisms persisted.  People said they looked like paper cutouts and that people just needed something to believe in after the war.

In 1966, the Daily Express found Elsie back in England and interviewed her.  She said maybe the fairies were just her imagination and maybe she’d found a way to photograph her thoughts.  This interview renewed interest in the photos.  In 1971, Elsie was interviewed on the television program Nationwide, and said the same thing as 1966.  In 1976, Elsie and Frances were interviewed together.  They said “a rational person doesn’t see fairies” but still said the photographs were real (10).

In 1978 James Randi investigated the photos.  He found the fairies looked very similar to images in Princess Mary’s Gift Book, which came out in 1915.  In 1982-83, Geoffrey Crawley, the editor of the British Journal of Photography, came out saying the photos were fakes.

In 1983 in The Unexplained magazine, Elsie admitted the fairies were faked to Joe Cooper.  She admitted that they were drawings and that hatpins were used to hold them in place.  She still claimed that they had seen fairies and only the ones in the photos weren’t real.  Frances admitted to the fakes as well.  However Elsie said all five photos were faked, while Frances claimed the fifth one was real.  In 1985, on Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers, Elsie expanded, saying that once Doyle was brought in, believing in the photos, she and Frances were too embarrassed to tell the truth.  Frances said, “it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun – and I can’t understand why they were taken in – they wanted to be taken in” (11).

Frances died in 1986 and Elsie died in 1988, both not long after they came clean.  Interest in the photos continued though.  In 1998 prints, a first edition of The Coming of the Fairies, and some other items were auctioned off for £21,620.  Also in 1998, Geoffrey Crawley sold off all the Cottingley things he had acquired; this included prints, two of the cameras, fairy watercolors Elsie did, and a letter in which Elsie admitted the hoax.  Crawley sold the items to the, now called, National Media Museum in Bradford (near Cottingley).

In 2001, some of the glass plates were auctioned for £6,000 to an unnamed buyer.  In 2009, Frances’s daughter went on Britain’s Antiques Roadshow with some of the photos and one of the cameras from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  She, like her mother, believed the fifth photo was real.  Her items were appraised at £25,000-£30,000.  Later in 2009 Frances’s memoirs were published.

In 1994, Terry Jones and Brian Froud parodied Cottingley in Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book.  In 1997 two movies related to Cottingley came out: FairyTale: A True Story and Photographing Fairies.

            The lure of the fairies continues…  I think part of it is the wonder and mystery, but also how someone like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in them.  I think it also tells you something about the time period that the photos became so popular and had both believers and skeptics.

1 - The Cottingley Fairies

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 - Cottingley Fairies

Gertrude Käsebier

            I chose today’s topic because her work keeps popping up for me.  Gertrude Käsebier photographed Evelyn Nesbit, who I’m fascinated by; her photos have been used on book jackets, stamps… a lot of things.  She was a portrait photographer and a co-founder of the Photo-Secession movement.  A lot of her work focused on domestic images of women.  Despite knowing all this now, I still don’t feel like I really know her.  I think I understand her art a bit better, and the changes in photography, but not really what she was doing.  Maybe writing this and rereading it will help me know her better in the future.

            Gertrude Stanton was born on May 18, 1852 in Fort Des Moines (now just Des Moines), Iowa in a log cabin.  Her parents were John W. and Gertrude Muncy Shaw Stanton, and she had a younger brother.  In 1859, John moved to Eureka Gulch and opened a sawmill hoping to make some money from the gold rush happening in Colorado; the following year the family followed.  The family moved around a lot, John trying to find gold where he could.  Eventually the family moved to Golden, the capital of the Colorado Territory; John was elected the first mayor of Golden.  The family’s new wealth and status meant they wanted bigger and better things for their children now, and so Gertrude was pushed towards music.  She resisted though, always more interested in art and pictures than anything else.

            When the Civil War broke out, the Stantons moved to Brooklyn, New York.  At the time of their move, John may have been dead already.  Some sources said that he died, and that caused the family to move; another source said that he moved with them and worked processing minerals in New York.  However it all exactly happened, the family moved to New York and Gertrude’s mother rented out rooms in their home to make money.

            From 1866 (or 1868) to 1870, Gertrude went to the Bethlehem Female Seminary (later Moravian College) in Bethlehem, PA, living with her maternal grandmother while she went to school.  She would return home to New York on occasion though, and on one of these occasions Gertrude met her future husband.  Eduard Käsebier was a German businessman, working to import shellac into the United States.  Eduard rented a room at the Stantons home on some of his trips.

            Gertrude and Eduard married on Gertrude’s twenty-second birthday, May 18, 1874.  This marriage gave Gertrude a home and family and financial stability, but not much else.  Gertrude didn’t have patience for housework and was still interested in art.  Eduard wanted a normal wife and family.  Neither person would budge and the marriage collapsed.  The couple had three children – Frederick William in 1875, Gertrude Elizabeth in 1878, and Hermine Mathilde in 1880 – but once the last child was born, the couple separated.  Gertrude once said, “If my husband has gone to Heaven, I want to go to Hell” (1).

            Despite their separation, Eduard continued to support Gertrude financially.  This support allowed Gertrude to go to art school.  Once her youngest child was grown enough, Gertrude enrolled in the Pratt Institute in 1889.  Originally she studied painting, but quickly fell in love with photography.  In 1894 she won places in two photography competitions: The Quarterly Illustrator for best photograph, winning $50, and runner up in the New York Herald’s contest.

            In 1894 Gertrude took a yearlong trip to Europe to further study art and broaden her knowledge.  She was still taking typical art photographs at this time, focusing on cityscapes and landscapes.  While she was in France, though, the weather was too bad to take pictures outside, and so Gertrude shifted to portraiture.  Also while in France, Gertrude was publishing photos and essays in French magazines.  In addition to studying in France, Gertrude studied in Germany under Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, who had also worked with Alfred Stieglitz.

            At this same time, Eduard fell ill and Gertrude returned home.  Eduard was only given one year to live, but ultimately lived another twelve.  Moving back to New York, Gertrude had to find a way to bring in an income.  She worked as an assistant to Samuel H. Lifshey, learning how to run a studio and work as a professional photographer.  In 1896 Gertrude opened her own studio in her home, moving shortly after to “the emerging upscale shopping district known as the ‘Ladies Mile’ developing rapidly along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan” (2).  This is when Gertrude’s portraits took off; she took over 150 photos of New York socialites at this time.  Her photos are reminiscent of classically painted portraits, but she always denied this comparison.

            In1896, Gertrude had her first solo show at the Boston Camera Club; this was to drum up business without being seen as commercial.  Many of her other early photographs are of friends and family and highlight the theme of motherhood.  (While Gertrude never had anything positive to say about marriage, she always showed motherhood in a positive, but realistic, light.)  Gertrude’s style became popular; she used few props and only simple backgrounds.

            Gertrude also took a number of photos of Native Americans.  Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was very popular and was touring the country; on their stop in New York, Gertrude took their photographs.  Having grown up out West, Gertrude wanted to show the Native Americans as she saw them as they were, nothing romantic; her photos were completely different from those of Edward Curtis, who was known for his photos of Native Americans.

            In 1898, Gertrude entered some pieces into the Philadelphia Photographic Salon.  Out of 1200 entries, only 259 were picked; Gertrude had ten pieces in the Salon.  The following year Gertrude was one of the judges in addition to showing more pieces that year and in 1900.  In 1899, Gertrude showed The Manger.  The piece was purchased for $100, setting a record for photographic art.

In 1898, also, Gertrude reached out to Alfred Stieglitz, ostensibly “asking for his advice on photographing outdoors, even though she had already published outdoor photographs” (3). They had similar ideas about photography, and he started promoting her works.  In 1899, he printed five of her pieces in his journal, Camera Notes, saying she was “beyond dispute, the leading portrait photographer in the country” (4).  In 1899 Gertrude was also praised in Everybody’s Magazine, “placing her at the top of both art photography and magazine photography” (5).

Gertrude began to be known for photographs of famous people.  Between 1900 and 1902, ten of her portraits of famous people were shown in World’s Work, including Mark Twain, Arthur Twining Hadley (president of Yale), Booker T. Washington, and Jacob Riis (6).  Her photos were also being used alongside fiction as illustrations.  Unlike Jacob Riis, and fellow early female photographer Alice Austen, Gertrude Käsebier was not interested in photographing the lower classes.

Gertrude was one of the first two women elected to join the Linked Ring in England (the other being Anne Brigman).  In 1901, Gertrude travelled to Paris with Edward Steichen and photographed sculptor Auguste Rodin.  Also in 1901, in Ladies’ Home Journal, Frances Benjamin Johnson included Gertrude in a piece on “The Foremost Women Photographers of America” (7).

Gertrude’s assent in the art photography world happened very quickly.  In just over three years she had reached the “highest level of accomplishment and acclaim in art photography in the United States” (8).  In her art, Gertrude was trying to be symbolic, yet intimate.  To give her photos this dual purpose, she would rework her photos to change the appearance.  Originally Gertrude worked with platinum prints, but moved to gum-bichromate in 1901, allowing her to create a different look.

In 1902, Alfred Stieglitz formed the Photo-Secession group, including Gertrude, Clarence H. White, and Edward Steichen as founding members.  This group was an offshoot of Pictorialism.  Pictorialism is all about manipulating the image and elevating photography to an art form.  These photographers would use different focus types, print in something other than black and white, and alter their prints with brushstrokes or other surface manipulations (9).  Photo-Secessionists were artists aligned with Stieglitz’s point of view.  Stieglitz dedicated the first issue of his second journal, Camera Work, to Gertrude’s pieces.

By 1908, Gertrude’s relationship with Stieglitz was over, having been strained for years.  In 1906, she had joined the Professional Photographers of New York which was more about selling photographs.  Gertrude had to make money to support her family due to her husband’s continuing illness, and Stieglitz was opposed to commercial art.  Additionally, Gertrude also cofounded the Women’s Federation of the Photographers of America with Clarence H. White, another group Stieglitz was opposed to.  Gertrude officially resigned from the Photo-Secession in 1912.

In December 1909, Eduard finally died and was followed shortly by Gertrude’s mother in August 1910.  This began a decline in Gertrude’s output, though she still focused on portraiture.  In 1914 she opened a new studio in New York and in 1916 became one of the founding members of the Pictorial Photographers of America.  In 1925, with failing eyesight and hearing, Gertrude’s daughter Hermine joined Gertrude’s business; in 1929, though, Gertrude shut her studio.  That same year, there was a retrospective of Gertrude’s work at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.  Gertrude Käsebier died on October 13, 1934 in Hermine’s home.

In 1979 Gertrude was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.  In the late twentieth century there was renewed interest in Gertrude’s works.  In 1979 the Delaware Art Museum put on an exhibition of her work; in 1992 the Museum of Modern Art had an exhibition, which eventually travelled to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  In 2002, Gertrude’s best-known work, Blessed Art Thou Among Women (1899), was put on a US postage stamp.

Gertrude Käsebier was not only “one of the first American women to have a successful career as a photographer, but she was one of the first photographers anywhere to focus on the family” (10).  Her work still looks fresh, to me, and just so beautiful and atmospheric.

1 – Lori Oden, “Gertrude Kasebier,” International Photography Hall of Fame.

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 – Beverly W. Brannan, “Gertrude Käsebier,” Prints & Photographs Reading Room, The Library of Congress, 2013.

9, 10 – Steve Meltzer, "The Nearly Forgotten Mother of ModernAmerican Photography, Gertrude Käsebier,” Imaging Resource, May 12, 2012.