The Wet Road
date: label: date made
content: before 1937
name: label: maker
content: Fassbender, Adolf
notes: label: Description
content: From <i>Pictorial Artistry: The Dramatization of the Beautiful in Photography</i>
label: Description
content: "It was seven o’clock on a rainy August evening at the Austrian-Tyrolian border. Looking back through the rear window of the car I saw this magnificent view. “Picture”, I shouted to my friend at the wheel. “Impossible”! was his reply. “how could you take it in this rain and darkness”? I finally persuaded him to stop and I rushed back through the drizzling rain, quickly adjusting the camera. For I had seen something he could not as he kept his eyes on the road ahead. The setting sun had broken through an opening of the clouds, sending its last glorious rays down to the peaceful earth. It was a marvelous sight lasting only a minute. The wet road, catching and reflecting the light, seemed like a river disappearing around the hillside in the distance. The burst of sunlight overhead provided a dramatic climax for our ecstatic appreciation.
label: Description
content: Composition:
label: Description
content: Radiated. An array of dynamic lines all pointing in the direction of the leading motive, the sky, bringing the entire setting to a forceful and dramatic unity. The lower key rendering of church and house was necessary to avoid clashing with the intended center of interest.
label: Description
content: Technical Problems:
label: Description
content: Photographing against the light at such hours results in extreme contrast, a blocked up sky, and black silhouette-like shadows in the landscape. This, of course, is not what the eye sees. So, to produce a true to nature print, over-exposure and extensive reduction work in sky as well as additional balancing with groundglass was necessary. Seeing, remembering, imagining, then knowing the limitations of the material, and finally, the full application of technical media, are all essential to recreate a scene like the “Wet Road” on photographic paper.
label: Description
content: Data:
label: Description
content: Camera: Makina 2 ¼ x 3 ¼
label: Description
content: Lens: Anticomar
label: Description
content: Stop: f.6.3
label: Description
content: Filter: Not needed
label: Description
content: Exposure: 1/10 in hand
label: Description
content: Film: Agfa Super Plenachrome
label: Description
content: Print: 14x17 Tuma Gas"
label: Description
content: by Adolf Fassbender, 1937
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Austria
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Photographic History
label: See more items in
content: Adolf Fassbender, Pictorial Artistry
label: See more items in
content: Photography
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PG.004116.06
label: catalog number
content: 4116.06
label: accession number
content: 146001
objectType: label: Object Name
content: photograph
label: Object Name
content: photogravure
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 7 3/4 in x 10 3/8 in; 19.685 cm x 26.3525 cm