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No. 21

James Doolittle was a pioneer in the development of color photography.  He’s best known for his delicately tinted tri-color carbro portraits of movie stars at Paramount Pictures and MGM, and is perhaps less famous for his surprising mise-en-scene carbro color photographs portraying ordinary lives made extraordinary by purchasing a Plymouth automobile during the 1930's. 

This close study of an aloe plant appears to be an early experiment in color. The small scale, shallow depth of field and custom dye-transfer process suggest that the photo was a personal effort.

Aloe Plant

James Doolittle, 1931
vintage dye-transfer carbro print
4 1/4 × 5 3/4”