Vanishing Point

About

Vanishing Point features the work of pioneering fictional photographer Frances Pane. Although a prolific and talented practitioner at a time when few women were behind the lens, sadly Pane’s photographs have been lost to history. Only a label from her perennial favorite frame shop on the backs of these old frames makes it likely these works were hers.

What were the subjects of these images? And where did these pictures vanish to? Did they abscond of their own accord, or were they spirited away by an outside force? What is lost, of both the subject and the photographer, when photographs that once were are now gone?

Coda

In a 2021 article in Lapham’s Quarterly, Kim Beil writes about the data science Adrienne Lundgren, a conservator at the Library of Congress, undertook to map where women worked early in the medium’s history. In many instances, names of early women photographers emerged through Lundgren’s analysis to which no extant works have yet been identified. But, Beil is searching. Read the article here

Process and Edition

Each photograph is an archival pigment placed within the frame it depicts. Some frames reuse original glass. In frames without glass, the print is waxed to make a more durable surface. Each piece is unique.