| This is what the Greatest Show on Earth looked like during Mr. Gumpertz tenure. "Little Bob Stevens once told me that he was a candy butcher on the show at this time and he and a companion placed an order with the Casey Candy Co. to have two cases of sweets shipped to each town which they picked up after work every morning. After tipping the usher $1 they proceeded to set up set up shop. Bob said, "The tent was so damn big that the Gump (Gumpertz) would be standing in the front connection and have no idea we were holding a candy pitch in the back end blues!" |
Monday, February 11, 2008
Assorted Ringling pictures #2
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9 comments:
I'm sure that the Gump wanted the circus audience to look like this every day. Like they said when asked about directions on the Forepaugh lot, "straight ahead a quarter mile and turn to the right."
Somebody please help me. Sadly, I never got to see RBBB under canvas and while I've seen countless photos of "The Big One" I just can't get a realistic idea of the Big Top's enormity. How would the Carson & Barnes 5 ring big top compare in size? I have seen and been inside that one and it was a grand experience.
Thanks to anyone who can comment,
Paul G.
Just looked at this photo again and see from the lower right that it's another wonderful Harry Atwell
picture. Mr Atwell and Mr Kelty are two of my photographer heroes.
And I hasten to add that thanks to Circus Historian Bob Sabia I have enjoyed many of the wonderful Circus photos taken years ago by fan Bill Day and Frank Ball certainly took alot of great shots,
particularly (for me) in the backyard.
Paul G.
Paul G.,
I like you feel like I have missed out on alot with the circus Big Top's.
I got to see the Ringling 1955 show under canvas.
I also got to see Vargas and Beatty Cole when they had the 150 by 300 foot tents. Those were impressive to me as that was big tents.
It was said that Carson and Barnes tent was equal to ringlings meg. tent.
This great shot by Atwell shows Ringlings 3 rings and 4 stages tent. A very impressive tent. Those days are long gone.
Both the photographers used large format cameras, 8 by 10 and larger and knew what they were doing.
Kelty used a Banquet camera, 12 by 20 format and contact printed the photo, no enlarging at all.
If we have any of the photos of both of these photographers in our collection we are lucky.
Demand for these photos has risen so much the dollar or two photos are now worth many hundreds of dollars and more.
Harry
Paul, the tent in this Atwell photo is about 190/200 feet wide and 490/500 feet long. A pro football playing field is 160 by 300, or goalpost to goalpost is 360 and the width 160. "Bigger than an NFL playing field!" would be an apt declaration by a press agent.
Harry, just a small point but the surviving Atwell negatives (1000s at CWM) are 4x5. I'm not saying he didn't have an 8x10 but since his work was more news-type shots, a journalist's Speed Graphlix makes sense. Larger formats, such as the Century-brand banquet camera Kelty used (hence the name of his business), took a bit of setup time just like assembling the huge groups of people.
Dick Flint
8 x 10s by Atwell are in the CWM collection. Burk & Atwell started out by printing negatives given to them by the Ringlings that had been taken by other photographers. One assumes that the rights went with the negatives from the photographer to the Ringlings.
Thank you very much one and all.
I believe it was Howard Tibbals who offered a very well done set of Kelty repros for a very reasonable price a number of years ago. I bought a set and it was well worth the price. There is also a great DVD avaiable on Mr. Kelty.
Paul G.
RE: KELTY,
There are 14 original Keltys on ebay right now, most with a "Buy Now" price of $999.00, I have seen them sell recently well over that.
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