The ‘Stryker’s Choice’ website was
created by Robert Herringshaw FRPS in association with SMD Computers Ltd,
during the COVID lockdown as a dedicated online research facility. The site offers
to extend the original Library of Congress resource to photographers and photo
historians, worldwide. Immediately you may wonder why Roy Emmerson Styker chose
to punch holes in such valuable negatives. This was the essential Research
Question and the quest of the online curator.In short, was it a ‘barbaric’ action and
approach that formed part of Stryker’s selection process of the Farm Security Administration Photographs, 1935-1939.
The charming picture below is the first image in the Hole-punched Gallery, no
0001, or more officially LC-USF33-002017-M3. The curator gave this anonymous
discarded hole-punched picture, the title of ‘Resettlement children, Ozark
Mountains, Arkansas.’ The image was captured by Arthur Rothstein in
August 1935.
Click on the image in ‘Gallery’ and more information will be revealed. Click
again on the blue LOC Library link and you will be taken directly to Library of
Congress online catalogue, here still more information becomes available.
One is hardly surprised to learn that several of the photographers that Stryker
employed in 1935, took great exception to having holes punched in their work.
“Who knows how valuable they (the negatives) might be in the future” (Ben
Shahn, artist and FSA photographer)
It is now 2026 and the future has already arrived. The curator, with the
aid of AI enhanced software by Pincel, has filled all the holes that Stryker
made in the 4225 negatives that he ‘killed’. All that was once lost has now been
regained and pictures that never were have been reimagined.
Enter the ‘Restored Gallery’ and enjoy the images as they were originally might
have been. In addition, these images are also available as negatives in
the Restored Negatives Gallery. This gallery is interactive and provides more
information still.
