The White Night
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: Christmas! The Spell of Yuletide everywhere… enhanced a thousand-fold for me by the all-blanketing blizzard. Excitedly, the snowflakes whipped and clung to my face and camera like myriad tiny hands. Now and then, the sounds of the crunching footsteps made me aware of strangers passing by furtively. The park was shrouded in the mystery of this luminous night. The high ascending buildings that frame the park were lost in the far-reaching darkness. But the bright glow to the south was unmistakable. There stands the Plaza. A tiny bell tinkled… a “Santa Claus” still at his post somewhere waiting for alms. The world about me, so aloof in the snowy stillness, held a serenity that filled me with gladness… an unknown something that for me is the spirit of Christmas… so glorious, so white, on this night of nights.
label: Description
content: Composition:
label: Description
content: We are led into the picture field over a winding black brook, resembling one of the many strange designs of the Chinese Dragon, culminating in a mysterious glow beyond the trees. The fantastic towers in the dim distance group themselves in pyramidal fashion and lend dignity to the drama.
label: Description
content: Technical Problems:
label: Description
content: The buildings were not visible, but their position was known through my daytime familiarity with the setting. The feeling of snow in the air was lost, due to time exposure and had to be reintroduced by printing a texture into the image during enlarging. The icy snow settled between metal parts of the camera and on the lens which made the camera useless after one exposure.
label: Description
content: Data:
label: Description
content: Camera: 4x6 inches
label: Description
content: Lens: Zeiss Tessar 7 ¼ inches
label: Description
content: Stop: f:11
label: Description
content: Exposure: 3 ½ minutes
label: Description
content: Plate: Illingworth Lightning
label: Description
content: Exhibition Print: 12x17 inches, direct enlarging
label: Description
content: Paper: Tuma Gas, blue toned"
label: Description
content: by Adolf Fassbender, 1937
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
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.004116.01
label: accession number
content: 146001
label: catalog number
content: 4116.01
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 7 5/8 in; 27.94 cm x 19.3675 cm