Myron Bement Smith Iran Photographs, Notebooks and Negative Registers
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Smith, Myron Bement, 1897-1970
setName: label: See more items in
content: Myron Bement Smith Collection
label: See more items in
content: Myron Bement Smith Collection / Series 2: The Islamic Archives
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: FSA.A.04, Subseries 2.5
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: Myron Bement Smith (MBS) focused his research and photographic interest on the Islamic architecture of the Isfahan area and in particular the Masjid-i Jomeh. He also visited and documented many other Iranian Islamic monuments as well as contemporary building techniques, villages and landscapes. MBS' architectural photography is meticulous and records not just interiors and exteriors of buildings and their settings but also important architectural features and details. In keeping with his interest in photodocumentation as an important research tool, he took many photographs of each monument and returned to a monument many times during his time in Iran. MBS kept notebooks that included information on camera settings, film and ambient conditions. He used a 35 mm Leica and a large format film camera. Photographs taken with the Leica are designated with an alphanumeric beginning with L and large format film photographs with a plain number. His negative registers for Iran consist of large ledgers with a contact print and information about site, feature and date photographed. Not all entries are complete. MBS also created a Persian Monuments Large Photo File arranged by province that includes enlargments of some of his Iranian photographs; criteria for inclusion is unclear. Also available is a card file containing 4" by 6" prints from many of MBS' Iran negatives arranged in numerical order. Reprints of some of MBS' non-Iranian negatives and slides are included separately. [For more information on MBS' photograph coding system see Subseries 2.1]