"The Two Bills' Show" printed from a very rare and very old 6ft.x16in. negative.
6 Feet
To Whom It May Concern,
This letter is being written to accompany the 16x72 inch print of Kelly Snyder’s Cirkut Print of “The Two Bills’ Show”. I am producing the prints from the Cirkut negative in Mr. Snyder’s possession and I am writing this to add to my observations. The Cirkut negative that I am printing for Mr. Snyder is a copy negative that was made from an original print. The negative is a 16”x72” Cirkut negative and almost certainly made by the original photographer himself. This is also the first 16 inch Cirkut that I have printed from. Over the years, I’ve printed from many 8” and 10” negatives. The making of this copy negative was a technical tour de force requiring a mastery of Cirkut (panorama) camera theory and a very complete knowledge of the camera’s mechanical workings. In the 1980’s I designed a set-up for making Cirkut copy negatives using my 10” Cirkut camera but never built it.
The negative that I am printing from is an example of an early “safety” base negative made, most probably, in the early 1930’s when cellulose nitrate films were being replaced by these non flammable films. Until this time all roll and sheet films were being made with highly flammable cellulose nitrate plastic. My impression here is that this negative was made to replace the original camera negative made by the photographer. The original negative, most probably was showing signs of nitrate deterioration and the photographer needed to replace it with a more stable working negative. This current negative is itself showing the signs of age and deterioration common with these early diacetate based safety films. This negative has a limited printing life with a limited number of prints that we will be able to pull from it. All possible care is being taken in the production of these prints to obtain the finest print possible. The resulting print is being toned and washed for permanence to assure a 100 plus year life.
Sincerely,
Michael Hager
Michael Hager produced the first series of prints, is a master printer, negative archivist and former curator for the George Eastman House.