WEEKLY DISCUSSION #28: Charles C. Ebbets “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper”

[david_henderson]

<p>Thanks for that Fred. I'm from the UK and I'd not heard that- but then I don't read the Mail. I have heard it referred to as "The Daily Fail" which arguably requires less interpretation.</p>

[James G. Dainis]

Using a derogatory sobriquet only works if people know what the sobriquet refers to. Otherwise it is just confusing.

 

I didn't read much of that article which was with the picture link. The end of the first line ..."may not have been as impromptu as previously thought" gets me wondering - Who thought that? When I first saw the picture I didn't think one way or the other whether it was impromptu or not. When I do think about it it takes me only a second to realize that the men were asked to go sit on the beam for a photograph, much as I imagined in my first post on this thread.

 

So is this an impromptu shot? Yes. Unless the photographer climbed up to the top of the steel work with the intent of asking any men that he would find up there if they would all go sit out on a beam for him. If he was up there taking photos and then asked the men to sit out on the beam, that seems impromptu enough for me.

[dhbebb]

<p>Thanks for the info! As I was familiar with the backstory to the pic, I did not bother to read the article. I note from this that “The 80-year-old photograph is also the subject of a new film titled Men At Lunch, which was shown at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month ... ,” which is presumably why the paper ran the story in September 2012 – it’s a PR plant which the paper for some reason dressed up as an investigative journalism revelation. The readers’ comments below the article are fantastic – a bunch of know-nothings convince each other that the picture is a cut-and-paste fake taken a few feet above the ground!<br>

The “Daily Mail” is the paper of choice for the conservative lower middle class in Britain, famed for its style (screaming simplistic headlines, story details, often contradicting the headline, buried in paragraph 8) and for its habit of explaining the importance of any story whatsoever in terms of its effect on house prices!<br /> </p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Fred: I used that link because it came up on a Google search for the photo. The back story was interesting as well. Plus the photo was large and clear. The other link I included showed some other photos from this photographer. Whether this particular photo was "staged" is superfluous as you can see from the other non-staged photos that the risk these workers took and the danger involved for the photographer as well were real. <a href="http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_14018295858019&key=ffaa95ddb1a81334856831c9c1a3e583&libId=45d36385-19ff-4bb4-8b8f-cea65c859bd2&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fphoto.net%2Fcasual-conversations-forum%2F00ccVR&v=1&out=http%3A%2F%2Fnowyorkcity.com%2F2012%2F12%2F12%2Fcharles-c-ebbets%2F&title=WEEKLY%20DISCUSSION%20%2328%3A%20Charles%20C.%20Ebbets%20%E2%80%9CLunch%20Atop%20a%20Skyscraper%E2%80%9D%20-%20Photo.net%20Casual%20Photo%20Conversations%20Forum&txt=http%3A%2F%2Fnowyorkcity.com%2F2012%2F12%2F12%2Fcharles-c-ebbets%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://nowyorkcity.com/2012/12/12/charles-c-ebbets/</a> </p>

<p>Contractor's doing crazy things putting themselves at risk did not stop with this picture. Here's a link showing recent violations. I don't know about the photographic worthiness of them, but they are instructional as well as awfully funny. http://staffingtalk.com/osha-violations-photo-gallery/</p>

[GerrySiegel]

Alan, I like the photo. It shows to me that our skyscrapers didn' t grow like Jack's beanstalk but took a special breed of high steel men to place the beams and toss the rivets and walk with little from them and eternity. My great uncle had a job with the Roebling company placing catwalks along wire ropes strung along the twin towers of Golden Gate Bridge. Talk about risk. The winds are worse than NYC in winter. He left a memoir of some ugly days: in 1936 " There's two kinds of freezing in bridge work. One is where you are so scared you can't move a muscle. That happened to me once,when I went across a walkway and hit a wire and turned a foot. It literally froze me and I couldn't move a muscle. A steel worker was above me, He started calling me nasty names. A trick---you get your mind off being scared and get angry. We wore three sweaters on those catwalks and still couldn't keep warm."

 

So my guess is that a few high iron workers, despite good pay, wet their skivvies a few times on the job. Hey, the cost of falls and injuries was factored into the mid thirties construction overhead. The GG Bridge had nets, which helped a whole lot. And the photographers who lugged big Graflexes to those pinnacles deserve credit. The photo is iconic because we can share some of the danger and yes the wonderful view from the Top of the World about then. Today it is left for window washers, and they deserve the pay they get. Irish then, I don;t know ethnicity now or if it is a family thing like the flying Wallenders......nice memory pic, Alan.

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>Whether this particular photo was "staged" is superfluous</em></p>

<p>Alan, if the only question were about risk, I might agree. Since there are so many more things at work for me in the photo than the risk factor, I don't find the staged aspect superfluous. I think it's an important part of how the photo makes me feel and what I'm looking at. It in no way lessens the effect of the photo. But, for me, it does affect the photo in significant ways. As I said above, the combination of the reality of the situation and the staged look of the people is something I consider very worthy and interesting about this photo. Such theatrical flare is very effective in some documentary work and certainly in photos that are meant for publicity. It can help make the viewer feel like an intended audience and can help that same audience pay as close attention to the people in the photo as they would to actors on a stage. Good staging will very often help a photo achieve that level of the iconic that so many mention in reference to this photo.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>As to staged: I believe Rockefeller was fairly widely hated in 1932, the photo, I take it, is from the middle of the Presidential campaign, and is just one example from a lot of other slick propaganda for the 'economic royalists' who had destroyed the economy of that day. The men are pictured as caricatures, are the men as the 'boss' saw them, contented and grateful just for having the 'gift' of work from a 'great man' in a 'great country', having their picture taken supposedly being the biggest thrill of their lives. They knew Rockefeller was nothing but a cheap crook. Everybody knew. The men were acting in a carefully staged event, as is made clear from the other shots that were in some of Alan's links. The real greatest thrill of these workmen's lives was to come just 6 months later when Roosevelt took office and started to do something that worked. Good choice Alan.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>What about the background in the photo? Does it seem like the quality and look of the background changes a little suddenly from what we see below the men to what we see above them? Or does that seem typical for a camera and lens of the day? It feels like the degree of blur and haze increases quite a bit in the portion of the background above the men.</p>

[Mark Z]

<p>Fred, the background does seem to change significantly. It might be caused by the way the negative was printed, rather than a camera or lens artifact, or something in the original scene. I linked to an article earlier that claimed that the negative was challenging to print, and the variation in the background might be just the way the printer thought it looked best. I have seen other versions of the picture, such as this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/Lunch-atop-a-skyscraper-c1932.jpg that have a different look to the background.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Thanks, Mark, the darkroom work in getting the print must be the culprit. And, yes, I do remember reading your post about the difficulties the negative presented. Thanks for that as well. When there's a stark compositional change like the strong dividing line in the image, sometimes a more subtle gradation of background effect can be overlooked since it may feel like the photo is simply divided in two. And I don't know how difficult it would have been to achieve a more nuanced graduated feel to the background, though I do think it would look better if the change in character of the background weren't so sudden, so if it was an aesthetic call on the part of the printer, I'd disagree with that decision.</p>

[James G. Dainis]

It looks like the background below the men's feet was burned in significantly during printing. The area just below the beam and around the men's feet is significantly lighter. Yet in the second photo that Mark Zell shows above, that effect is still there although the lower background doesn't appear to have been burned in that much. The background also appears to be lighter between the men's shoulders as if the men on the beam were dodged out a bit during printing to allow the background to burn in more.

[Mark Z]

<p>James, your guess about the manipulation makes sense. The local contrast in the background below the men is greater than in some other versions. I wonder if that was obtained just by burning, or if something else is in play as well (like the grade of paper). In Alan's original link, if you click on the photo you can advance to another photo showing men resting on the beam. The background in that shot looks much more even, although lower in contrast.</p>

[James G. Dainis]

Now a days one would use variable contrast (VC) paper and burn in the background with a magenta filter to bring up the contrast as well as darken it.