Talk:Batty Fischer

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Photography: History

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Luxembourg

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Questions

An interesting little article; thank you as always, Ipigott! Excuse my utter ineptitude in German and thus inability to check for myself, but:

The hobby to which he devoted every minute of his spare time was either (and this is unclear) photography or more specifically townscape photography combined with something akin to what would later be called street photography. Yet he showed great interest in other arts. Hang on: did he spend every minute on photography? If he did, was it a matter of photographing the arts and figures in the arts? (Such photos don't seem to be mentioned elsewhere in the article.)

Nice to see you are taking an interest in the Luxembourgians.

From what I can gather, Fischer was generally recognized as being very artistic in his approach. He did take many shots of artistically finished facades and their trimmings but also of other less interesting subjects, including photographs of people. I don't think he specifically photographed the arts, but I don't really know. Perhaps saying "every minute" is a bit much. He was of course a dentist when meant he worked every weekday from about 8 am to 6 pm plus Saturday mornings. So he only really had Saturday afternoons and Sundays. You can see some of his work here - and you might also be able to cope a bit better with the French.

Would "telescopic apparatus" mean telephoto lenses? I'm ignorant of lens construction, so the next question may be particularly stupid, but what are "carton tubes"?

Maybe, in retrospect, they were telephoto lenses. There is not sufficient detail in my source to determine exactly how they functioned. The carton tubes which houses the lenses were in fact constructed of several layers of paper, papier mache fashion no doubt, and were finished with a dark varnish to avoid unwanted reflections. As far as I can gather, at least two lenses were included in each tube. I suppose the device worked like a primitive telescope, maybe with a fixed resolution. Perhaps I can find out more from the Photothèque in Luxembourg.

they present a considerable degree of uninterrupted regularity Ummm.... Their production was high and uninterrupted; they provide considerable and uninterrupted documentation of the city, or similar?

Yes, you often get strange mouthfuls like this when trying to convey ideas expressed in German. What was different about him was that he deposited a number of photographs virtually every weekend for a considerable number of years. Perhaps there were only a few shots each week but over the years they contributed to an unusually large collection. Maybe it would be better to say something like "As a result of their uninterrupted submission over several decades, his photographs constitute a particularly large and interesting collection, documenting the development of the city, its buildings and its people." Please put into into something a little less frightening! - Ipigott (talk) 11:58, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

-- Hoary (talk) 00:33, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Suddenly I'm too sleepy to think about rephrasing, but I'll return to this tomorrow. -- Hoary (talk) 14:40, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]