Stockland Martel

Week 43 of the series CC52: A Year of Personal Work by Craig Cutler…

Title: “The Electron Tube”

“The electron tube is a marvelous device. It makes possible the performing operations, amazing in conception with a precision and certainty that are astounding. Its construction requires materials from every corner of the earth. Its future possibilities, even in the light of present-day accomplishments, are but dimly foreseen.” (from the 1937 edition of the RCA Receiving Tube Manual, http://www.hearthamplifiers.com/page9.html)

Vacuum tubes were critical to the development of electronic technology, which drove the expansion and commercialization of radio communication and broadcasting, television, radar, sound reproduction, large telephone networks, analog and digital computers, and industrial process control. The electron tube also made possible the Colossus computer that broke German code during WWII. But the tubes’ reign was not to last. Within a generation, the invention of the transistor, a smaller, reliable, less power-hungry device spelled the end for the beautiful and miraculous vacuum tube. To those who worked with vacuum tubes, there will never be anything that can equal them. (adapted from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube)

Format: 4×5 large format.

Film: B&W / TRI-X.

Prop stylist: Cindy Sandmann.

All images © Craig Cutler.

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