from jacques callot's series of prints depicting "the miseries and misfortunes of war" which i had the fortune to see last week at the hamburger kunsthalle.
the first test scan of one of dozens of 3x5 negatives which came into my possession many years ago. kept safe during the intervening decades packed in the papers of three dark green leather wallets marked 'Kodak Album Classeur', the photographs show a Europe suspended between two world wars, caught like a fly in amber. the handwriting at the bottom of this one notes it was taken at Harve (Havre?) on May 21, 1926
as noted earlier this year, each trip back across the ocean to the ole' homestead occasions a new foray into the cellar to rummage through my archived library. after a good chortle and gape, i take to fondly stroking their spines until eventually extracting a few volumes to bring back to berlin in the belly of an aircraft. lucky for me, my fellow passengers and the airline, the sturdy canvas bag i use for this procedure has but a limited capacity. even so, this time i was able to stuff it full of an impressive 40 kilos of wordy goodness - and a couple of dvd's came along for the ride. among the new arrivals: