Retro research starts on the internet...you search for a local bookstore that sells hard covers of photographer's monographs and biographies. You also search for
museums and see when they are showing photography exhibitions. Choose ones that mention photographers in the books.
Be prepared to be shocked. Not by the subject matter - by the results. Some of it is beautiful and some of it is bitterly disappointing.
I've seen major exhibitions of Dupain, Atget, and Man Ray, and spent hours looking for the beauty that is seen in their books. I could have spent minutes...their originals were sometimes surprisingly lousy. The reproduction and curation of their works...not to say the vigorous salesmanship that has pushed them for decades...has made more of some images than actually existed.
However - there is more to retro shooting than the commercially fabulous. Thousands of less famous names published books of their photos and these are as retro as the stars. Look for Kodak, Gevaert, and Agfa titles as well as illustrated travel books of the times. Every retro periodical has genuine retro imagery in it, and you can stare at it without electricity.
To be fair, a lot of the images have no spark to them either, but therein lies a secret - they are more valuable as records of the times than as art works.
Text written by Richard Stein
