Talk:Josef Jindřich Šechtl

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[edit] A million images?

We read:

The confiscated part of the archive was significantly censored (from an estimated size of hundreds of thousands to a million to roughly five thousand negatives) and stored in the Regional Archive in Tábor.

Unless your name is Winogrand or Araki, a million negatives is a hell of a lot. I realize that the archive would have spanned a number of photographers and a lot of years, but consider that most of this was taken on sheet film or plates. Really, this is particularly hard to believe. I can easily believe that the stupid regime destroyed the great majority of the work, that it wanted to destroy all of the work, that it had no real reason for doing so (etc etc); but I can't help suspect that the figure of a million (or even mentions of hundreds of thousands) is the result of uncritical recycling of a gross (if understandably angry) exaggeration.

But I could be wrong. OK, persuade me that I'm wrong.

This particular assertion aside, the whole section is going to need quite a bit of specific backup with authoritative sources. (Of course, most, perhaps all of it will be in Czech so I won't actually be able to understand any of it.) -- Hoary 03:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

You are right, that mentioning a million can probably be dropped. The estimate was based on three facts:

there is fully preserved archive of Seidel studio in Jindřichův Hradec that is smaller in size and estimated to 200000 (by counting numbered boxes), studio of Langhans (among largest in Prague) is often mentioned to be of size over million (in contemporary sources too) [[1]]. Very rought esitmate on number of negatives made during Šechtl and Voseček studio existence can be based on transaction numbers: negatives made on contract after 1907 are numbered starting from 1 to 70000 [[2]] (modulo typos containing extra digit on the end of list). 457 of those transactions are preserved, out of 180000 photographs digitized. 70000*18000/457=2757111. This is probably upper estimate - I would expect the "ordinary portraits" to be thrown away more often than the photographs of city or architecture that is unnumbered. The numbers was written on the reverse side of photographs and negatives was supposed to be available for reproduction on later time.

The archive was stored in a long passage seen at [[3]].

Would dropping million make it sound better? We can also just settle down on "significantly censored". The archive was in fact lucky - from Langhans studio just roughly 2000 negatives was preserved.

--Honza 10:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Dropping "a million" would certainly make the passage sound a lot more plausible, but it doesn't help with another, major problem: that no source is cited for this. It seems instead to be your own calculation, newly presented here. As a calculation, I (personally) have no objection to it; but even though the facts on which it is based (e.g. that the Seidel archive is smaller and is estimated to contain 200,000) may be published and/or commonly acknowledged, the calculation itself appears to be new, and if it is new it would have to be discounted in Wikipedia as "original research".

If on the other hand some magazine of Czech photography or social history or similar had published an article about the archive in which the same claim was made -- whether by the writer or by somebody who's quoted by the writer -- then this could be cited and a description of the size of the archive could legitimately be added. -- Hoary 23:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not aware of any source about original size of this particular archive (except for the aforementioned numbering of photographs published on the archive web and published sizes of other similar archives of other studios). The problem is that little was published about the archive after 1989. I intend to write an paper on digitization project to this year issue of "Historicka fotografie", but that probably won't make it less original research then. I've kept the "significantly censored". Does that seem fine?--Honza 12:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes.

Wikipedia can cite what's written in reputable journals. (Of course, if there's any controversy, this should be made clear: "XYZ originally contained hundreds of thousands of negatives<ref>Blah blah</ref>" isn't the only option; there's also "XYZ has been estimated to have originally contained hundreds of thousands of negatives<ref>Blah blah</ref>" and so forth.) The writer of the article in the reputable journal that's quoted and the WP editor who quotes the article may be the same person; if so, the editor should be honest about this in the talk page, as you have been.

I'll return to the article a little later: I'm in a rush right now. -- Hoary 07:07, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chronology

I think it would be better if the content of the chronology were distributed within the regular, continuous-prose part of the article (as much of it already is), and then deleted: that there should be no separate chronology. (I'm not advocating any deletion of content, merely the redistribution of content and deletion of duplications.) Am I missing some argument to keep a chronology? -- Hoary 01:07, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I find chornology useful as an reference (ie it is easier to look up facts there then read through the continous prose if one is looking for something specific), but if it seems inappropriate, I can keep local copy and we can remove it from the wikipedia. --Honza 20:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that a chronology can be a great help. Imagine a hundred-plus-page book presenting the photographic fruits of the Šechtl family business, a book in which there's an essay about each of the two most prominent Šechtls and three other essays: I for one should be grateful for a one- or two-page chronology so that I could keep track of what's what. Or another photographic family. There have been at least five generations of photographers in family Deriaz (worse, two were named Alphonse and two Armand): a book on them would certainly benefit from a chronology. Or again, if WP had an article on each of these five, it might be helped by a chronology of the whole family (cf Rebollo fr's helpful chronologies at the end of his Camerapedia articles on obscure cameras; "Tsubasaflex" is an example).

I'm fairly sure that this article shouldn't have a chronology. But it's harmless enough and I'm not going to remove it. Who knows, I may later change my mind and decide that it benefits this article. -- Hoary 23:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings either way. The chronology was written primarily because it was easier to first collect information into it and then write the prose text. I was especially puzzled by the early days section since the three jobs and army service didn't seem to fit into the time interval (the bit I was missing was that Josef Jindřich left service early). So if it is removed as redundant at any time, I won't complain.

Just for context, note that Josef Jindřich is second of three generations of photographers in Šechtl family. First, Ignác Šechtl already has a page, I would like to expand into GA too once this one is finished (I wonder what we should concentrate on next here BTW). Last generation is Josef Šechtl and Marie Šechtová, so ther are two Josefs too. Thanks for all the work! --Honza 14:06, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Do what you want to do ... but if you're interested in entirely unrelated Czech photographers, I'll note that Josef Sudek has a very inadequate article and that Karel Cudlín's could surely be better too. First, however, let's continue to improve this article. -- Hoary 14:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Josef Sudek definitly deserve a better page, I will try to find time for that. However my overall plan is to write articles as I learn about photographers while preparing the exhibitions, so Karel Šmirous will probably come next. He did important research in the area of autochrome printing (and among the autochromes preserved in Czech Republic, he is about the most notable author), so I think he deserves more publicity than he had so far.

Concerning this article, I am trying to figure out more about Leica work and exhibitions/awards right now. If you have suggestions for improvements, they are very welcome. --Honza 14:47, 23 May 2007 (UTC)