Critique of 19th century photographer Alexander Gardner's Photograph

Alexander Gardners' Coffins and Open Graves Ready for the Conspirators' Bodies at Right of Scaffold seemed to catch my eye immediately as a very powerful image. It seems to explain in very simple terms what it might have been like to be executed during this period in time. Mr Gardner definitely worked to get this composition to tell its tale. You could almost see his mind working. He carefully picked out each important detail he would eventually include. All of the small details with the backdrop of the large brick wall surrounding the gallows makes for a somewhat empty appearing photo that draws your eyes to simple details of what seems like a commonplace occurrence. Still at the beginning of the life of photojournalism this image is extremely effective at telling the tale of the execution of these individuals.

One of the first things in the photo that caught my eye was leaning against the brick wall. The shovels used to dig the graves waiting to be used again to fill the graves back up. The freshly dug graves with shovels leaning as any shovel would against the wall really made me realize how little respect is seemingly given to the people being put to death. I would have expected the shovels, and graves to have at least been put out of sight of the onlookers. The shovels and fresh graves would have surely been, whether intended or not, a part of the torture of the individuals to be killed as they walked out unhooded, standing high up on the gallows well within view of their own graves. To me that simple placement of the shovels speaks volumes about the attitude of the people overseeing this event, and the care, or lack thereof, for the people about to be killed. That the photographer included the shovels nearly in the center of the photograph says to me he understood their significance quite well.

An interesting aspect of the image that caught my eye was how the slow shutter speed used by the photographer makes the image more powerful. Likely used to correctly expose the scene it was just long enough to capture two men on the catwalk strolling along. Whether this effect was intended or not I do not know but it really emboldens the feeling that this event was rather carefree and the individuals watching had little interest in the dead that were hanging mere feet from them. The slow shutter also brings more life to the four men in the bottom right corner of the image standing directly across from the coffins and graves. Their slight movement suggests to me a conversation, likely not a solemn one. Along with these blurred active figures you see two groups of men on the catwalk, seeming very interested in the goings on inside the wall, but casually watching. One man with his foot resting on the rope, or chain of the railing and in the other group a man leans casually against his rifle. There's no doubt to me the photographer wanted to capture these men so casually watching the scene of the executed still hanging from the ropes.

This photo caught my eye after flipping through the pages of A world History of Photography. It is sitting along side 3 other images of the event yet this is the only one that seemed bare and that had no instantly identifiable subject of interest. It pulls your eyes around the image looking for what the photographer might have seen. The fact they didn't make the subject of the image a mugshot of the gallows and let the small details become important seemed to me to make this the most effective image at telling the story of what happened the day of the execution. The scenes showing all four bodies hanging are interesting historically but provided little for my mind to ponder on as this image did. The small tiny details in this image that most people would pass over really make me start to think that even when this image was captured over a century ago people would have carefully examined such a photograph because they would likely rarely have seen any photo of a news event. It seems to me that the photographer was not extremely worried about things as we commonly are today, a perfect cover photo that instantly conveys its meaning. This image takes some inspection and thought to really understand its depth.

The photo in question is among the first generation of photo journalistic images. It is interesting to me how this image in particular seems to tell a story about the events of that day and I feel I have a very good understanding of what took place and I never read one single word about this execution. This being the case it leads me to feel that the photographer deserves plenty of credit for making such a simple appearing image so good at depicting a historical event and actually carrying its story along time over one hundred years later without losing any of the strength of the original.

The wet collodion process was a difficult one which required the photographer to bring a complete darkroom along with them. The process demands that the photographer must coat a large glass plate immediately before use. This sheet must be used to make a photograph and then developed before drying less it be ruined and the image lost. One image correctly coated, exposed and developed is likely quite the task but to pull off a whole series would have been a lot of work. These photos were terribly expensive to make, even by today's standards. Just taking time to examine such images can really broaden ones view. That the photographer would go through so much trouble to document this event seems important. I think we should all spend the time to see what all their (19th century photographers) work was for.