Historic Hood River

Notes

This cellulose nitrate negative from the Davidson collection is in a relatively advanced state of decay.  The emulsion has cracked and is flaking off, making for a very artistic effect.  Somehow, through the magic of physics or chemistry, the cracks in the emulsion line up with edges of objects in the image.  As an example, look at the man on the left:  the entire brim of his hat and his right shoulder are outlined with cracked emulsion.  Today we can create this effect with edge detection image processing, but this is entirely the result of about 110 years of aging to the negative.  The transition from light to dark seems to create a natural place for the emulsion to crack.

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