5th
September
2006
Few negative contexts
In an earlier time, the negative was everything. I don’t mean in a philosophical sense. No, this is the “real thing”; the photographic negative. For the common man, the print was the thing, but for the person behind the lens, the only part worth protecting was the negative, won through chemical combat. Fragile, almost opaque, tiny by comparison to the fruit sought after in printed form. We treated our negatives like the “apple of our eye”, barely daring to touch their surface. We dusted with fine hair brushes and compressed air, and storage was archival. If you damaged the negative, every print would bear a silent and lasting witness.
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