‘Stryker’s Choice’ a WordPress website was created by ‘mycameraimaging’ in association with
SMD Computers for the express purpose of providing a research tool for photographers and photo-historians.
You may also be wondering why Roy Emerson Stryker chose
to
punch holes in such ‘valuable’ negatives, as part of his selection
method for the Farm Security Administration /Office of War Information
Photography 1935 – 1942 .
The
charming picture on this page is the first image in the Hole- Punched
Gallery, No 0001 or more officially LC-USF33-002017-M3
The on-line
author has given the image a title of ‘Resettlement children, Ozark
Mountains’. It was captured by Arthur Rothstein in August 1935.
Click on the image in the Gallery and all will be revealed.
Click again on the blue LOC Library link and you will be taken directly
to a Library of Congress page where more information will be revealed.
One
is hardly surprised to learn that several of the photographers that
Stryker employed in 1935 , took great exception to having holes punched
in their work.
‘Who knows how valuable they might have been in the future’ , Ben Shahn, (artist and photographer), was heard to say.
It
is 2023 and the future has arrived already. Mycameraimaging with
the aid of AI empowered software has now filled the 4225 holes in the
negatives that Stryker punched.
All
that was lost has now been regained and pictures that never were,
re-imagined . Be amongst the first to enjoy them, as they were meant to
be.
In addition, the images are also available in a separate gallery, to view as ‘on-screen negatives’.
