The Crooked Mile
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: "<i>There was a crooked man
label: Description
content: Who went a crooked mile
label: Description
content: He found a crooked sixpence
label: Description
content: Against a crooked stile…</i>
label: Description
content: So reads the old English rhyme. Near Halifax in Nova Scotia I was reminded of it. For there, half hidden away in the rocky uneven shoreline of a quaint little fisher-village (Peggy’s Cove) I found a crooked mile!
label: Description
content: Intent on immortalizing the Crooked Mile in a picture as it has been in nursery room verse these many years, I sought out a crooked man, paid him the equivalent of a crooked sixpence for his services, and then carefully posed him in legendary fashion. But alas for my picture story telling. In the dark room with my negative before me, my sense of compositional rightness got the better of me. By careful retouching, I removed the image of the crooked man because his presence detracted attention from the logical center of interest, which inspection of the finished print reveals as being the little white house at the top of the hill where the crooked mile fades over the horizon.
label: Description
content: Composition:
label: Description
content: The graceful S-curve of the road entering the picture at the lower right leads all the way through the picture area until it fades out where the sky line begins. The arresting motif at this point predominates because of the directional force of the S-curve movement.
label: Description
content: Technical Problems:
label: Description
content: More than just the man was removed by retouching to improve the composition. A few stray sheep in the roadway were also sacrificed. Rocks that were too bright, due to the extreme sensitivity of Panchromatic film to yellow when a filter is used, had to be reduced and chalked in the final print-making. The roadway was brightened in keeping with its importance in the composition, and the house at the upper left was toned down. The water at the right was too black because of the effect of the filter, and had to be treated to show detail and reflections of its surface.
label: Description
content: Data:
label: Description
content: Camera: 9x12 Linhof
label: Description
content: Lens: Zeiss Tessar
label: Description
content: Stop: f.16
label: Description
content: Film: Agfa Superpan
label: Description
content: Exposure: 1/5 second, on tripod
label: Description
content: Print: 14x17 on Tuma Gas"
label: Description
content: by Adolf Fassbender, 1937
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Canada: Nova Scotian
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.004116.08
label: catalog number
content: 4116.08
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: 11 in x 8 1/2 in; 27.94 cm x 21.59 cm