RUSS MARSHALL PHOTOGRAPHS

Update: Initial Thoughts and Plans for Exhibit

Agreed on title - "A Working Life: Detroit Photographs by Russ Marshall, 1958 - 2008". Looks like the main focus will be my labor, factory, industrial stuff. Nancy is thinking about a big grid with 20-30 photographs of the worker portraits. Maybe a few of the 16x20 portraits along side. There are a handful of 16x20s of the Rouge Plant that will probably fill out the wall.

The European/UK shots will find a home in the smaller gallery room adjacent to the main room. The music and night shots will be grouped. I suggested, sort of, a set of women musicians, singers and workers could work seeing as how the year 2020 will be the 100th year anniversary of the vote to admit the women's vote in elections. May not make any sense at all.

In the meantime I'm printing shots Nancy selected from Detroit Doc that she thought might be considered for either the exhibit or the exhibit book/catalog. Also have to dig up some tear sheets and get a few of my books together to take down at the end of the month.

I haven't told anyone about the exhibit next year in July except Nancy O., Pat R. and Penny M. I don't think anyone reads this blog so I'm fairly certain the secret is safe until I let it out close to the opening.

May Day at the Reichstag, W. Berlin 5-1-1990

UPDATE: Deliver DIA Prints and Actual Exhibit Date

Delivered exchange prints plus new ones to the DIA on Thursday. 81-13x19 and 16-11 x14 prints of the U.K. and Europe from 3 trips there, 11-13x19 prints of the 1967 Belle Isle Love-In in Detroit, 7-11x14 prints from my Detroit Hookers Series and 4-13x19 prints from my Detroit and Other Misc Photographs group.

Came away with suggestions for more prints from perused pages in Detroit Doc over coffee at the DIA cafe. Also for the next meeting in mid-April, Nancy Barr needs some of the laminated pages from Solidarity's "This Working Life" features and a couple magazine spreads of Thatcher's England that were published in Solidarity and Outtakes. By the way, the actual exhibit date is sometime in July of 2020. I was thinking June of this year. She needs this stuff for the exhibit book/catalog by May 1, 2019. Some may go into the exhibit.

At this meeting a couple of days ago, Nancy had questions delving into my background for details. Mostly for now about how my interest in jazz started. Nothing yet about my first interest in photography. Also talked a little about the name of the exhibit. I'm thinking just "Russ Marshall: Photographs". I'm thinking about giving her copies of my books. She has This Working Life but the pages are falling out.

If there are a few to be printed larger than what I've provided, I'll have to take the negs to a lab in Auburn Hills, MI. Hopefully I'll be able to monitor the printing.

Ready To Deliver Prints

I've gone through and inspected all prints for flaws, density, contrast, etc

Seventy nine total 13x19 prints on the list. Plus 15 11x14. The DIA already has 11 good prints. So I'm actually delivering 68 13x19 prints plus the 15 11x14. Total delivering - 83 prints.Write captions, etc on back of the 11x14s and I'm ready to go. Probably next week

Docklands schoolyard, London, UK 1989

London street 1990

London subway 1989

B&W printing 13x19, PrecisionColors Inks and Re-prints Update

After all of the testing, experimentation with OEM, LD and PrecisionColors inks, I finally settled on a final solution.
LD dye inks of CLI-251 carts C,M,Y,G. Precisioncolors photo dye black for both CLI-251 Blk and CLI-250 PGBK. The CLI-250 PGBK is supposed to be filled with pigment black but I am now and have been filling it with PC photo black. The reason is that after I printed the whole set of photographs from the UK and Europe and the Belle Isle Love In and actually delivered them to the DIA last May - I looked critically at the duplicate set I kept here and compared them to the prints I was making after May after having arrived at the system above (using photo black in the pigment cart), I realized to my horror that the pigment black prints were dull, lifeless and lacked deep, rich blacks. I decided that I would absolutely have to re-print all of them and I emailed Nancy B. and informed her of that fact and hoped they had not started to digitize them into the system. They had not.
So I ended up re-printing 2 new sets of the UK/Europe prints plus The Belle Isle Love In prints as well. Some of the prints were OK and did not need re-printing because I had originally printed in color mode and adjusted the colors and tones — about 11. The rest were printed using black only.

Precision Colors Inks

From a Word Press blog post - July 25, 2018

Still printing from my England/Europe negs. Been reading about compatable inks other than LD which I was using before I went back to Canon OEM. As I posted before, I'm printing my b&w with OEMs using the 'gray scale/plain paper' setting which uses the pigment ink from the PGI-250XL cartridge almost exclusively. Gives me, as noted before, a harsher almost xeroxy look. But printing on matte paper doesn't produce saturated blacks.
I've decided to replace that OEM cart with a Precision Colors one filled, by me, with their photo black dye ink. In fact I have the ink, cartridge, re-fill needle but am waiting for an 'O' ring (rubber washer) for the ink bottle cap from PC.
I'm, of course, hoping to get better and deeper blacks and the cost savings will be welcome. Been buying the OEM PGI-250 pigments carts on line --- ebay at about 2/3 the cost.

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LONDON and Europe Doc

A documentary look at London and European cities in late 1980s. An 138pg book of 79 b&w photographs on the streets of London, Paris, Budapest, Berlin by documentary photographer Russ Marshall. This is a soft cover, 11x8.5 perfect bound magazine format book and comes encased in an archival clear polypropylene book cover for protection from finger prints and scratches. The photographs were taken on trips to England and Europe in the years of 1987, 89 and 90. I was on assignment on a couple of the trips for an American based international labor and political publication. Many were subsequently used in other publications. Some were sold through galleries and a fine art photography representative I was signed on with at the time. Thirteen - fifteen prints will be part of a larger exhibition in November 2020 - June 2021 at the Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit, MI. For those interested -- the photographs were all shot on Tri-X film in Nikons. CLICK on cover image to take you to ETSY to order.

FACTORY

FACTORY is an 8.5x11 magazine format publication. Soft cover and perfect bound with 100 pages of 69 black and white photographs of industrial laborers in automobile factories, foundries and mills. Most were shot in and around Detroit and Michigan from 1960-2000. Others in Ohio and Pennsylvania. This is a follow-up companion publication to "THIS WORKING LIFE: Photographs of Labor and Industry, Works by Labor Writers and Poets". (2011) Both publications give voice to the mass of anonymous laborers and acknowledge that their efforts, their skills and their lives mattered and that they did exist at that time and in that place. Russ Marshall's 30 year freelance career took him from the peopled streets of Detroit's inner city to the board rooms of commerce and industry. From the jazz clubs and strip joints to the foundries and assembly lines of the Big 3. His photographs are held by universities and museums and exhibited from Maine to Mexico. CLICK on cover image to go to ETSY to order.

Detroit Doc

A book of B&W photographs of Detroit (mostly people) from 1960s - 2000s. Russ' 30 year freelance career took him from the peopled streets of Detroit's inner city to the auto factories' assembly lines and foundries, jazz clubs and strip joints, Tommy Hearns' Kronk gym to Detroit Eastern Market's pork brains, fish tails and hog farmers. Working girls plying their trade on Cass Ave. and at the now closed Fisher Body Plant on Fort Street. A few pages of narrative description. 6x9/ 182 pages/ 119 B&W photographs - many are double page spreads. Soft cover perfect bound. CLICK on cover image to go to ETSY to order.

My Navy Life 1960-1964

This is a 51 year look back at Russ Marshall's 4 years service in the U.S. Navy. From boot camp to duty stations in Florida, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Puerto Rico where he served as a Navy photographer. He was there during the Cuban Missile Crisis There are a lot of photos in this 212 pg book -- more than 200 mostly taken by Russ . Many are work related and many others show the lighter side of a bunch of 2o year old photographer sailors partying in the lab, on the beach, at USO events and on liberty trips to Jamaica, Haiti and San Juan. CLICK on the photo to go to book order site at Amazon.