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home // E-E // biographie // art // eros // Leningrad 80s // Valentin Kozlov // 2 x 3m // events // sitemap // kontakt /
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(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov: Leningrad 80s >> ART>>
Reconstructing E-E KOZLOV's photo archive from the 1980s
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Chapter 11. Paper archive and digital archive On the basis of scanned images of the contact sheets, I established two digital archives, one going by contact sheet numbers (3001 etc.), and another one, more important for my work, going by film numbers (XX). This division follows the division created with the books, of which five hold contacts sheets and negatives (3001) and two hold reconstructed films (XX), Book 1 and Book 2. To create the digital archive going by film numbers (XX), I copied a frame from a scan of a new contact sheet, named it (XX11) and put it to the proper digital film folder (XX). Thus, the first frame of the first filmstrip of contact sheet 3001 corresponds to AZ71, and it went into the digital AZ folder. At the moment, the digital film folder archive is yet incomplete; it doesn't include some of the films I work with less often. Adding films to the digital archive is a process that has continued over the years, especially with high-resolution scans. When high-res scans complete low-res scans, I keep them in a separate folder, so that there are two folders, for example BE and BE high-res. While a “normal” folder has all images of a film, the respective high-res folder may have only those particular images I needed for my research; BE has 35 images and BE high-res has 4 images.
As a matter of fact, I work with the books and with the digital archive simultaneously, depending on what serves a purpose better, because even when they contain the same data, a paper archive and a digital archive are by no means interchangeable. This is not only a question of which of the two media stores data for a longer period of time. If I’m looking for a particular picture but don’t remember which film it belongs to, I open Book 1 or Book 2 and turn the pages. Paper pages allow you to look at all pictures of a film at a glance, and most of the time, I remember the approximate location of that picture in a page. This is much faster than searching digital folders. Paper pages are also ideal for adding comments and similar notes that can be completed or corrected any time. When you open a page, you look at notes automatically, whereas leaving them in a digital folder you need to open the file intentionally. If I know the film name, or, even better, the file name (or assessed it with the help of one of the books), for instance BB55, I go to my digital BB folder and open the picture on the screen. Because I copied the pictures from scanned contact sheets, they are small, but still larger than those tiny contact prints in the books. They also show more details than the paper copies, as Xerox copying enhances contrast, and dark areas might get completely black. In case high-resolution scans are available, I can check those. Of course, you also get the details when you look at the picture on a contact sheet print through a magnifying glass. A small one like a loupe or a linen tester can be placed directly onto an image. This is how photographers used to select an image for a print in those gone-by times. Obviously, those digital low-resolution scans are not intended for reproductions in print form, but they do offer some advantages. First, copying an image or frame from a digitalised contact sheet is faster than scanning the negatives with a film scanner. Besides, in the case of contact sheets without negatives, scanning the old vintage contact sheets is the only option. Second, taking an image from a contact sheet makes it is easy to include the film edges, which, as we have seen, contain some relevant information about film dates and numbers, sprocket holes, and the distance of an image from the film edges. Scanning a negative, it is more difficult to get the same result. You need a flatbed scanner with a transparency unit, since high-resolution negative film scanners work, by default, with holders cropping not only the film edges, but masking the image borders, as well.
To achieve a high-resolution image for a reproduction in a book, I prefer to scan one of Kozlov’s vintage prints, if available, because each is an artist’s work. They are unique historical artefacts – even two prints of the same negative are never the same. Kozlov printed them in different formats, mostly between 9 x 12.5 cm and 15 x 24 cm. One of his portraits from 1988 appeared in a large interview with the Chinese magazine “Vision” (no 175, 2018), and the designer of the magazine found an interesting way to work with Kozlov's vintage print.
When vintage prints turn up in some private collection, I always ask for scans to add them to Kozlov’s archive. We also created a number of new prints when we reprinted the contact sheets, mostly in 20 x 25 cm format. 35mm negatives actually allow considerably larger reproductions, and we had a selection of negatives from the "Good Evening Gustav" series (BA, BB, BC) printed on 75 x 50 cm paper.
In my opinion, the old, optical photographic print process yielded better results for black and white negatives than the modern process of printing scans – better meaning more natural and less grainy. Also, when the negative is projected through a lens directly onto the sensitised paper, small scratches in the film emulsion disappear, while with a scan, such scratches will appear even more clearly and need to be removed with the help of some editing software. On the other hand, high-resolution scans of 35 mm Svema and Tasma negatives deliver an amazing amount of details, which is extremely interesting concerning artists’ works and the art they appreciated and displayed on the walls of their homes and studios. In this regard, pictures of Kozlov’s Peterhof flat and studio “Galaxy Gallery” are especially important. MN14, a picture the artist took of his friend Viktor Labutov in 1978, shows one of the walls of his room decorated with prints and postcards, reproductions of works by Van Gogh, Klimt, Dali, Chagall, Holbein, symbolists, impressionists, and religious paintings. In this way, high-resolution pictures constitute an important source to get an idea of an artist’s self-concept in a closed society.
© Hannelore Fobo / text / pictures / lay-out © (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov / artwork Uploaded 3 May 2021 |
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