| Oct 2, 2010 | Cameras for all (1890-1910) - Request for examples | | | |
I'm planning an online exhibition entitled "Cameras for All" which will include examples of portable cameras and the rise of instantaneous photography between approximately 1890 and 1910. It will include photographs of people using early Kodak and other portable cameras along with publicity materials for the cameras. If you have examples from anywhere in the world I would love to learn about them. Many thanks, Alan
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| | Sep 25, 2010 | Newsletter 4.06 - September 24, 2010 has been emailed | | | | Luminous-Lint Newsletter 4.06 - September 24, 2010 has been emailed to all those on our mailing list and you can subscribe to these free newsletters if you haven't already done so.
Past issues of the newsletter are in the library on the Luminous-Lint website. Best, Alan
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| | Sep 23, 2010 | Portrait: The Unknown Sitter - African American Portraits of the 1860s-1880s | | | |
As the prices for photographic prints declined through the nineteenth century portraits became available for everybody. Studios proliferated within even the smallest centers of population and itinerant photographers travelled in wagons and by train to seek business opportunities wherever they could. With paper-based photographs, such as salted paper or albumen prints, information on the sitter could be written directly upon the paper if required but with those on glass (ambrotypes) or metal (Daguerreotypes, tintypes otherwise known as ferrotypes, melainotypes or Neff plates) a label had to be affixed or the details scratched onto the plate. This was rarely done and so by far the majority of Daguerreotype and tintype portraits are of unknown sitters. Without a knowledge of the sitter or the photographer it can be difficult to establish dates or historical context to advance scholarship.
To raise awareness of this issue this online exhibition shows a collection of portraits of African American sitters that were presumably taken between the 1860s and the 1880s in the United States. We welcome these images being shared to assist in the identification of any of the sitters, photographers, agents and painters involved.
Julie L. Mellby - jmellby@princeton.edu
Graphic Arts Library, Princeton University Library
Alan Griffiths - alan@luminous-lint.com
Luminous-Lint
Update
Stanley B. Burns, MD (Executive Director, The Burns Archive) has kindly provided additional information based upon his book Forgotten marriage, the painted tintype & the decorative frame, 1860-1910: a lost chapter in American portraiture (New York: Burns Press, Burns Collection, 1995) that illuminates how painted portraits of this type were created.
Except in rare cases where an original identified photograph has been kept along with the coloured portrait, normally within a family, the sitters in these portraits are almost impossible to identify. The reason for this is that smaller original photographs, sometimes accompanied with a lock of hair and even more rarely with a printed form specifying how the final portrait should appear, were passed to agents who delivered them to the artist who would create the final portrait. The final portrait was normally larger than the original and this was done by making a photographic enlargement that was then painted. In the case where the painted portrait was framed the back of the frame sometimes had written details on the sitter but over the years as the subject of the painting was forgotten the frame was perceived to have a greater value than the portrait and the two became separated. As soon as this happened the chances of identifying any of the parties involved became increasingly remote.
In the article by Scott Robson "Now hold it" - People and portrait photography, p.48-62 in "Social History and Photography" Proceedings of a symposium held at the Art Gallery Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia (23-23 March 1985), (Art Gallery Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1990) there is an the interesting surviving piece of evidence from Nova Scotia in Canada. An agent Alfred L. Ethrington who collected orders for painted portraits in the Annapolis Valley took tintypes and CDVs and wrote down the customer requests for coloring on forms. These were placed in envelopes and passed to Allister Harlow in Milton, Queens County who copied them, enlarged them, and printed them faintly on paper as a guide and then painted them. The envelopes sometimes included a lock of hair of the sitter along with a detailed form. A rare surviving example of such a form from around 1895 is in the collection of the Nova Scotia Museum (N-14,628).
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Exhibition: Portrait: The Unknown Sitter - African American Portraits of the 1860s-1880s
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| | Sep 19, 2010 | Scientific: 19th Century Expeditions | | | |
This online exhibition makes no claim to being comprehensive given the vast number of expeditions that were carried out during the 19th century. The intention is rather to stimulate interest in this area for more a complete survey of the subjects. Within this exhibition there are images that will be new to most visitors.
Future additions to this exhibition as we proceed will include:
- Heinrich Barth and his work with the Central African Mission (1849-1855)
- John Hanning Speke and the search for the source of the Nile (1857-1863)
- Robert O'Hara Burke and his crossing of Australia (1860-1861) and John O'Douall on his journey from the south to the north of Australia
- Francis Garnier and the Mekong River Expedition (1866-1868), the travels of Commander Doudart de Lagrée and the expeditions of Henri Mouhot (1826-1861) one of the first Westerners to visit Angkor
- Nikolai Przhevalsky, remembered for the wild horses named after him, whose expeditions led to a far greater understanding of Central Asia (1871-1888)
- Charles Doughty and his memorable travels in "Arabia Deserta" (1876-1878)
- The Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and the North East Passage (1878-1879)
- Francis Younghusband (1863-1942) and his work in Tibet
- Mary Kingsley and her explorations in West Africa (1893-1895)
If you have a series on these, or any other scientific expeditions, I'd be fascinated to learn about it.
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Exhibition: Scientific: 19th Century Expeditions
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| | Sep 19, 2010 | The Bang Bang Club (Film: 2010) | | | | A drama based on the true-life experiences of four combat photographers capturing the final days of apartheid in South Africa.
Recommended film but remember it is a movie and not a documentary.
Amazon provides the following review of the book "The Bang Bang Club" (Basic Books, 2001) which is well worth reading by anybody interested in photojournalism.
Most people, upon hearing gunfire, would run away and hide. Conflict photojournalists have the opposite reaction: they actually look for trouble, and when they find it, get as close as possible and stand up to get the best shot. This thirst for the shot and the seeming nonchalance to the risks entailed earned Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva, Ken Oosterbroek, and Kevin Carter the moniker of the Bang-Bang Club. Oosterbroek was killed in township violence just days before South Africa's historic panracial elections. Carter, whose picture of a Sudanese child apparently being stalked by a vulture won him a Pulitzer Prize, killed himself shortly afterwards. Another of their posse, Gary Bernard, who had held Oosterbroek as he died, also committed suicide.
The Bang-Bang Club is a memoir of a time of rivalry, comradeship, machismo, and exhilaration experienced by a band of young South African photographers as they documented their country's transition to democracy. We forget too easily the political and ethnic violence that wracked South Africa as apartheid died a slow, spasmodic death. Supporters of the ANC and Inkatha fought bloody battles every day. The white security forces were complicit in fomenting and enabling some of the worst violence. All the while, the Bang-Bang Club took pictures. And while they did, they were faced with the moral dilemma of how far they should go in pursuit of an image, and whether there was a point at which they should stop their shooting and try to intervene.
This is a riveting and appalling book. It is simply written--these guys are photographers, not writers--but extremely engaging. They were adrenaline junkies who partied hard and prized the shot above all else. None of them was a hero; these men come across as overweeningly ambitious, egotistical, reckless, and selfish, though also brave and even principled. As South Africans, they were all invested in their country's future, even though, as whites, they were strangers in their own land as they covered the Hostel wars in the black townships. The mixture of the romantic appeal of the war correspondent with honest assessments of their personal failings is part of what makes this account so compelling and so singular among books of its ilk. --J. Riches
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| | Sep 19, 2010 | Painting on photographs: Supporting materials | | | |
To improve this online exhibition I am seeking photographs or engravings of colourists at work, advertisements for colourists and nineteenth century trade catalogues. If anybody has examples of colourists boxed sets showing the colours and brushes that would be greatly appreciated.
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Exhibition: Painting on photographs: Supporting materials
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| | Sep 19, 2010 | Painting on photographs: A 19th century perspective | | | |
With thanks to all the institutions, private collectors, photographic galleries and dealers who have kindly provided examples for inclusion.
The artist that rubs out the freckles from a lady's photograph, blots out truth and substitutes falsehood. If the conscience of society is not above the approval of such things, it is because artists have educated society down to that level. A true artist owes it to himself to be truthful. If artists would spend as much pains trying to bring out the living realism of nature as they do in trying to improve nature, both art and morals would be vastly the gainers.
(Rev. W.P. M'Nary "Art as a Teacher" in The Evangelical Repository, First Series, Vol.LVI, No.11, April 1880, p.365-366)
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Exhibition: Painting on photographs: A 19th Century perspective
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| | Sep 17, 2010 | 19th Century Photographic Studios: Supplies | | | |
I'd be most grateful for scans of the covers and example pages of nineteenth century photography-related trade catalogues from anywhere in the world. - alan@luminous-lint.com
This online exhibition makes no claim to be exhaustive but rather provides a starting point for more detailed investigations of the companies that provided the cameras, lenses, instruments, chemicals and supplies to the expanding photography industry through the nineteenth century. The simplistic classification below provides a way of better understanding the complexities involved and will improve as Luminous-Lint evolves.
The first manufacturers:
- Opticians - Their understanding of lenses was critical to the clarity and speed issues required.
e.g. Vincent and Charles Chevalier (France, Paris), Bianchi (France, Paris), Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtländer (Austria), Bland & Long (GB, London), Zeiss
- Optical instrument makers - a company that could manufacture microscopes, lenses and precise scientific instruments had the necessary intellectual capacity and technical skills to manufacture the early camera equipment.
e.g. Horne, Thornwaite and Wood (GB, London), Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours (France), and the renowned Dollond family (GB, London) who provided camera lucida and were makers of telescopes
- Chemists - Early photography required access to and an understanding of chemicals, their properties and the safety issues involved. Chemical manufacturers took advantage of the opportunities of a new market.
e.g. Edward N. Kent (GB, London)
Products were distributed out by:
- Agents
- Wholesalers
- Photographic supply companies (some of whom also manufactured products) - as the market expanded niche companies that could concentrate solely on photography evolved.
e.g. E. Anthony later E. & H.T. Anthony (USA, NY), Scovill Company and the Scovill Manufacturing Company (USA, NY) Tilford's (USA, St. Louis), Southern Stock Depot (Baltimore), Richard Walzl (USA, Baltimore), Marion & Co (USA), N.E. Sisson (USA, NY) for everything necessary for making Daguerreotypes.
There were specialist companies for each product sector for example:
- Camera makers: Alphonse Giroux (France, Paris), Susse Frères (France)
- Camera lens: Voigtländer (Austria)
- Photographic card stock: A.M. Collins (USA)
- Carte envelopes: Wm. H. Nixon (USA)
- Backgrounds: L.W. Seavey (USA)
- Dry plates: Cramer & Norden's (USA, St Louis)
Each sector of the manufacturing base in each country or region had its' own distribution networks.
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Exhibition: 19th Century Photographic Studios: Supplies
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| | Sep 17, 2010 | Postcards with a message (1980-2000) | | | |
These postcards are a visual snapshot from about 1980 until around 2000. They combine photographs, images, graphics and texts to get their message across.
The postcard format has been used as a purveyor of social and political messages from its earliest days. When I was in England from the late 1970s until 1999 I collected issue-based postcards that addressing racial, housing, equality, trade union, political and a host of other topical issues. NGOs, publishers and single activists created issue-based cards that were often short-lived and ceased distribution as the issue waned in public interest. The Miners Strike which ripped the UK apart politically and marches from the "Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)" or the "Anti-Nazi League" demonstrations have morphed into other movements against the World Trade Organisation, The International Monetary Fund and other fluid groupings.
COPYRIGHT
The postcards in this online exhibition are shown under the Fair Use provisions of Copyright Law for educational non-commercial purposes. I've not been able to contact, or have not received replies from, all the people and organisations whose work is included. If any publisher, artist, photographer or copyright holder would like an image removed please let me know and I'll do it as quickly as possible. No commercial use whatever can be made of these images.
alan@luminous-lint.com |
Alan Griffiths, June 2010
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Exhibition: Postcards with a message (1980-2000)
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| | Aug 24, 2010 | The Gernsheim Collection | | | |
This online exhibition coincides with the exhibition Discovering the Language of Photography: The Gernsheim Collection at the Harry Ransom Center, 21st and Guadalupe Streets, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas (September 7, 2010—January 2, 2011).
When The University of Texas at Austin purchased the Gernsheim collection in 1963 it was the largest, and arguably finest, collection of photographs held in private hands, made up of some 35,000 photographs taken by several hundred different artists. The collection’s encyclopedic scope—as well as the expertise with which Helmut and Alison Gernsheim assembled it—makes the collection one of the world’s premier sources for the study and appreciation of photography.
Helmut and Alison Gernsheim were also pioneering historians of photography, writing more than 30 books and 200 articles based on their collection. The Gernsheims, therefore, not only built their collection upon the foundations of the medium’s history, the images also served as the touchstone from which they wrote some of the first histories of photography prior to the explosion of the photography market and the establishment of the history of photography as an academic discipline.
This exhibition is made up of two complementary and interweaving narratives—the history of photography as told through the photographs themselves and the history of the Gernsheims’ formation of their collection. The collection’s most notable strength is its holdings in nineteenth-century British photography, but the exhibition features masterpieces from photography’s first 150 years, as well as many lesser known images that are seminal to its history.
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Exhibition: The Gernsheim Collection
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