Photos in Question

[NW Mailing List]

 Matt: The "leaning forward" look is a result of the way the shutter works in a Speed Graflex camera, used in that era by several train photographers.
Jim Nichols
    On Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 02:40:15 PM CDT, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:  
 
 John mentioned (and Ken agrees) that at least some of these are Otto Perry photos. Otto’s photos - at least the ones along the Ohio River valley - have a distinct look to them that I attribute to his equipment. The locomotives in his photos tend to have a leaning forward / narrow / tall look to them. Of the recent photos shared, the image of the J shows this most noticeably. Some of distortion is normal for moving images, but his are enough different from the norm to make it immediately stand out. Perhaps this was typical for the equipment of his era.

I purchased one photo from the Denver Public Library - a beautiful environmental image of a Y4 passing through Chillicothe Ohio by Robert Richardson. The Library has several payment tiers - I chose the one for personal use, which includes publishing on a personal website, according to the guy I talked to. None of the agreements granted eBay-type sales. 

All this to say that the various railroad photos in that Library are worth paying for from the source. Avoid eBay photos with no provenance.

Matt Goodman

> On Oct 25, 2023, at 10:15 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> Jim and John
> 
> Totally agree with you that he likely has no rights to be selling copies of the Otto Perry work. 
> 
> However, being listed as in Australia, means that it would become international law to enforce it makes it very difficult. I am betting, with the prices, that they are printed in the US and shipped from the US.
> 
> Many years ago, I got a letter from a man in Australia, who had paid a considerable amount to Mark Faville, who possessed the N&W steam drawings at the time for prints. The man wanted to build a live steam Class A. He made the mistake of paying Faville for the total in advance, and Faville decided that when he got about 100 drawings printed (of the 300 or so) he was done, told the guy that was all he was getting. Unfortunately, he had paid the price for the full batch, but bringing legal action was going to cost far more than it was worth, other than maybe the satisfaction of winning. Faville did have a history of doing this type of thing, as well.
> 
> I told the man I wish I had something to help him, but did not know of anything that I could do. I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but this would entail filing charges in a local court, and at that time, difficulty in getting a deposition from Australia would be huge.
> 
> I’d imagine the Denver Public Library would have much the same thing, other than getting an attorney to write a cease and desist letter and sending it to both ebay and the seller.
> 
> By the way, I think this same seller had also been selling copies of some of the photos we have been selling. 
> 
> In answer to Mike Rector’s comment about this being an estate sale, no way. Take a look at how many listings this seller has, at the moment, 584,938 items, this is an industry, not some small estate, someone who knows to get the stuff, and sell it outside the copyright laws. Ebay does not seem to care unless you are a huge corporation whose rights have been violated.
> 
> Best
> Ken
> 
>> On Oct 24, 2023, at 10:54 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Jim,
>> 
>> All of these images were taken by Otto Perry. And they reside in the archives of the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library. Go to the link below to access all the details regarding these images and many more. Perry was a fine, widely traveled photographer, and we owe him a great deal of gratitude for his many rare N&W and VGN images.
>> 
>> BTW, I highly doubt the Bay'er from 'Down Under' has permission to be selling any of his photos. Just my 2c.
>> 
>> https://digital.denverlibrary.org/digital/collection/p15330coll22/search/searchterm/N%26W/page/1
>> 
>> John Garner,  Newport VA
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