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Introduction
Introduction
Most of us today take photographs for our family albums. The lucky ones among us have also inherited family photographs from the past. These photographs provide another type of record that can offer insights into our family history. But what can they tell us? How can we elicit the information they hold? And how do we analyse or evaluate that information? The purpose of this unit is to suggest how to approach the interpretation of the photographic record.
Please keep referring to your own family photographs as you work through the unit. This will help you assimilate the information and assist in the analysis of your own photographs.
Don't assume that once you have studied a photograph, you will have garnered all the information there is to be found. I am constantly surprised at how much I fail to see when I look at photographs. I have given talks using the same images to different audiences. Frequently somebody seeing an image for the first time will point out details I had not previously registered.
In addition, of course, an insight you discover about an image in your collection may have repercussions for others. So the process is one of continuous reading and reappraisal. Bits of the jigsaw gradually fall into place.
This unit looks at some of the ways photographs can reveal, and sometimes conceal, important information about the past. It will teach the skills and provides some of the knowledge needed to interpret such pictorial sources.
Learning Outcomes
After studying this unit you should:
- be aware that photographs are shaped by a set of conventions based on ideas and practices which are not immediately apparent;
- be aware that photographs, like other documentary records, are partial and biased;
- be aware that photographs, like other documentary records, require critical analysis and careful interpretation;
- be aware of the importance of contextualisation in analysing photographs.
1 How to avoid damage when handling photographs
1 How to avoid damage when handling photographs
Remember to treat your photographs with the consideration demanded by their age and fragility. Careless handling and storage will cause damage.
- Handle photographs at the edges: the skin carries chemicals which cause deterioration (professional archivists wear cotton gloves).
- Hold a photograph in both hands or support an unmounted print with a piece of cardboard to avoid unnecessary handling.
- Never write on a photograph with anything other than a soft lead pencil (2B or 3B recommended). It is good practice to write a unique identity number on the back of a print and then make notes separately on paper.
- Never do anything to a photograph that cannot be undone without causing damage. Store photographs in a dark, dry, cool place.
The Bibliography section at the end of this unit contains books that provide more detailed information on the handling, storage and conservation of photographs.
2.1 Styles of photograph
2 Background history
2.1 Styles of photograph
Let's briefly examine the various styles of photograph that are commonly found in family albums.
Practical photography was invented in 1839. The first photographic portrait studio opened in Britain in 1841. During the first 20 years photographic portraits were bought as one-offs in the shape of the daguerreotype in the 1840s and the wet collodion positive in the 1850s. Both formats came cased or framed and were designed to be carried on the person or displayed in the home.
2.1.1 Card mounted photographs 1860–c.1914
In Britain, standardization and mass production in photography came with the introduction of the carte de visite from c.1860. A larger version known as the cabinet appeared in 1866. Cartes and cabinets were paper prints of a standard size mounted on cardboard mounts of a standard size. They retailed by the score, dozen or half dozen and were housed in purpose-designed albums that appeared on the market at the same time.
2.1.2 Postcards c. 1902–1950s
Although postcards were used for pictorial views in the late 19th century, the postcard format was not used for portraits until c.1902. It remained popular until the 1950s.
2.1.3 Amateur snapshots 1880s–
Before the First World War, most family photographs were taken by professional photographers. In the 1880s, however, amateurs began to buy ready-made negatives over the counter and either undertook their own developing and printing or farmed this work out to commercial concerns. The amateur market expanded steadily, encouraged and sustained by commercial companies such as Kodak. By the second half of the 20th century most family photographs were taken by amateurs.
Photographs in the family album can therefore be divided into 2 distinct categories:
- portraits commissioned by the family and taken by commercial photographers for a fee
- snapshots taken by amateurs, usually family members or friends.
This unit concentrates on the period when the professional was dominant, for the following reasons:
- Studio portraits are too readily dismissed as uninformative simply because people lack the necessary visual analysis skills.
- Studio portraits were produced to a formula which offers a congenial paradigm for developing skills of visual analysis and interpretation.
- These skills can readily be transferred to the later tradition of snapshot photography.
- Equipped with a knowledge of the practices of early professionals, we can make comparisons between then and now. This enables us to identify areas of continuity and change. We can then assess how far the 19th-century studio tradition continues to influence the snapshots we take today. We shall return to this question throughout the unit.
But before we start to analyse the studio tradition in detail, let's consider the nature of the photograph as a source of evidence in historical research.
2.2 Photographs as primary sources
2 Background history
2.2 Photographs as primary sources
As a primary source of historical evidence the still photograph remains largely unexamined and unexplored. Many academic historians remain wedded to the written word and are often mistrustful or dismissive of the still image. Photographs continue to be used merely to prettify or to provide necessary breathing space in dense texts. In fact, the task of finding ‘illustrations’ is often only considered after a book is written. What could indicate more clearly that the photograph has never gained legitimacy as a historical record that can inform and mould authorial thinking and argument?
Photographs require as much scrutiny and critical analysis as written records. It is easy to think of them as ‘truthful’ and ‘objective’ because they are produced by a machine that reacts to light falling on the actual scene or subject. However, all photographs are created by human agency and photographers legitimately seek to influence viewers’ perceptions. A photograph does not present the subject ‘as it was’, but as the photographer wanted the viewer to see it.
Since 1839 various distinctive applications have evolved – portraiture, art photography, reportage, fashion, documentary and so on. Photographers working within these disciplines shared a common set of ideas about the nature and purpose of their work. They adopted practical procedures that enabled them to express these ideas in their photographs. Ideology and methodology worked together to shape the typical, generic image. We can learn about these ideas and practices from contemporary publications that offered advice to photographers.
Of course, there was cross-fertilization between the various applications and of course ideas and practices developed over time. But to explore the meaning conveyed by an image to its contemporary audience, we must try to understand the ideas and practices that shaped it. Our subject is domestic photography and the family album and these obviously belong to the portrait tradition. So in this unit we shall identify the ideas underpinning the portrait tradition and investigate how these ideas translated into working practice.
2.3 Photographs as artefacts
2 Background history
2.3 Photographs as artefacts
Bear in mind that photographs are artefacts. This means that they are more than just images. The photographer, the process and the packaging all add something to our understanding of the role of the photograph. So, for example, the mount can indicate its purpose (exhibition wall, domestic display, album and so on) and the significance attached to the article in its time. The physical properties of a mount, such as the quality of the card or style of printing, can distinguish top-of-the-range products from the functional. These and other qualities such as thickness, texture, colour, style of decoration and any written information, printed or manuscript (i.e. hand-written), can assist in dating. I shall refer to the artefactual nature of the photographic record at various points in the unit.
2.4 National variation
2 Background history
2.4 National variation
Relatively little research has been undertaken by photohistorians in the field of domestic photography. However, we should be aware that photography developed in different ways in different countries. So, for example, in Britain the daguerreotype remained a luxury article, as high prices restricted sales to the comfortable classes, whereas in America, because of early mass production techniques, studios could offer 4 daguerreotypes for 1 dollar.
Photography was, however, a European invention. Western practitioners exported not only the technology but also European traditions of portraiture.
Introducing ideology in portraiture
3 The portrait tradition: ideology
Introducing ideology in portraiture
Image 9: Photographer/Painter: French School. Subject: Portrait of a nobleman seated at a desk, c.1750.
Portraiture emerged as the first major commercial application of photography because the camera could mechanize an established and profitable market in hand-crafted likenesses. By the early 19th century, most sectors of society had acquired the habit of buying portraits. Working people purchased penny profiles or silhouettes cut from black paper, the comfortable classes acquired miniatures of watercolours on ivory, and the rich commissioned their portraits in oils. Portrait photography retained this leading position until the end of the century.
The tradition of hand-painted portraiture in Europe dates back at least as far as the Renaissance. By 1839 painters had evolved a sophisticated professional rhetoric about the role of the portrait and the nature of the artist's interaction with the sitter. Clients, too, had expectations and attitudes based on existing practice. In mechanizing the likeness trade, early photographers were confronted with a ready-made set of ideas about the portrait and its purpose. Let's explore how photography responded to these ideas.
3.1 Idealization
3 The portrait tradition: ideology
3.1 Idealization
There were fundamental principles of painted portraiture that affected every element of the portrait, from expression and pose to background and lighting. The first imperative was the need to idealize the sitter.
Activity 1
Click on 'View document' below to open and read part of Audrey Linkman's article on 'Photography and art theory', then answer the questions.
How did portrait painters acquire an appreciation of ideal beauty?
Answer
How did they resolve the dilemma between representing ideal beauty and accurate likeness?
Answer
How did photographers respond to this notion of ideal beauty?
Answer
3.2 Limited positive characterization
3 The portrait tradition: ideology
3.2 Limited positive characterization
The painted portrait was, however, perceived to be more than a mere ‘map of the face’. It was also meant to reveal aspects of the inner as well as the outer being.
Activity 2
Click on 'View document' below to open and read the remainder of Audrey Linkman's article on 'Photography and art theory', then answer the questions.
What was regarded as the most important element of the portrait?
Answer
How did the theory of idealization affect this important element?
Answer
3.3 Characterization and sexual stereotyping
3 The portrait tradition: ideology
3.3 Characterization and sexual stereotyping
In attempting to characterize their sitters, 19th-century commercial photographers did not intend or attempt any serious psychoanalytical exploration of individual character such as we perceive it today in our post-Freudian world. They sought instead to stereotype by age and sex within a narrow range of positive virtues, which had previously been approved, within the conventions of painting: modesty, simplicity and chastity for women; dignity, strength and nobility for men.
3.3.1 Control of the sitter
Image 11: Photographer/Painter: Studio of Richard Beard. Subject: Jabez Hogg photographing W.S. Johnston, early 1840s.
Photographers proved eager to model themselves on previous practice in another aspect of their approach to portraiture. The painter potentially enjoyed total control over the portrait: pose, background and expression were all determined by each application of the artist's brush. The painter, in effect, controlled the sitter. It therefore became important in terms of their own professional rhetoric that photographers, too, should be seen to exercise similar control over their subjects.
Virtually every 19th-century manual on photographic portraiture had a chapter on managing the sitter. The photographer's role was to direct; the sitter's only response was to acquiesce. Sitters who expressed ideas of their own became, by definition, ‘difficult’.
Photographers were warned against allowing their own superior judgement to be influenced by the sitter.
In the studio all men are not equal; all men are inferior, for the time, to the artist: but unless he would awe, he must conceal this power by tact and affability.
Activity 3
Various stock types of difficult sitter recur in the literature. Painters, of course, posed the biggest threat. Other difficult customers included those accompanying sitters: the gentleman with the lady, the mother with the child, the owner with the pet.
Why did painters pose the biggest threat?
Answer
What's the significance of the gentleman, the mother and the pet owner in this context?
Answer
4.1 Facial expression
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.1 Facial expression
Facial expression was considered the most crucial element to success in painted portraiture. It was the vehicle through which intangible qualities of mind and soul were conveyed. In painting the idea was to achieve the ideal expression, a synthesis of character and the spiritual essence of being. Although cameras could portray any number of expressions with relative ease – an advantage of the machine over manual practice – early portrait photographers continued to believe in the ideal expression which could epitomize an individual's character and experience.
Dedicated photographers attempted some originality of expression in portraiture and art work intended for exhibition. Commercial photographers, however, adopted the convention of a formal, unsmiling expression. You may be familiar with the standard explanations for the absence of smiles and laughter in Victorian portraiture, namely long exposure times, which meant that sitters could not hold a smile, or the theory about concealing bad teeth. Let's see if these explanations hold water.
Activity 4
Look carefully at Image 13, a portrait of the artist, writer and critic John Ruskin. What qualities do you read into his facial expression? It may be helpful here to compare Ruskin with the smiling expressions (‘Say cheese!’) we adopt in front of the camera today. Note down your ideas; we shall return to them later.
Cartes de visite and cabinet portraits of celebrities – royalty, politicians, church ministers, actors and writers, for example – retailed in print shops, fancy goods outlets, stationers’ and photographers’ studios in the 19th century. They were placed in family albums alongside the portraits of relatives. Many of these celebrity portraits carried no identification of the sitter. From 1862, manufacturers could attempt to protect their rights in the work by registering the image at Stationers’ Hall. The word ‘Copyright’ on the mount can indicate that the image was so registered though this is not always the case. Photographers paid a fee and filled in a form which usually (though not always) carried a copy of the image. These copyright records are held today in the Public Record Office at Kew. This splendid resource is unfortunately difficult to access as it is organized only by date of registration.
Activity 5
Click on 'View document' below to open and read 'The anatomy of expression in painting' by Charles Bell, 'The photograph and artistic colouring' by Alfred H. Wall and 'The studio and what to do in it' by H. P. Robinson. These are extracts from 19th-century manuals and articles giving artists and photographers advice on expression in portraiture. Answer the question below.
What qualities did laughter and smiling convey to artists and photographers in the 19th century?
Comment
Activity 6
Now return to your notes from Activity 4 and compare your ideas of the qualities you read into Ruskin's expression with the qualities that Victorians might have read into it.
Comment
Smiles could certainly be achieved in Victorian portrait photography, but were normally restricted to commercial or humorous photographs for the retail trade. Actresses frequently smiled in their portraits but as their social status was equivocal, the smile in this context could be interpreted as availability or invitation. The ‘respectable’ distanced themselves from such connotations in their family portraits.
So I think we can reasonably argue that the absence of smiles in 19th-century portrait photography was not due to technical considerations. Indeed, when the gelatine dry plate succeeded the collodion wet plate negative in the 1880s, exposure times were reduced to fractions of a second yet we do not witness any immediate or widespread outburst of smiles and laughter in the family album.
4.2 Pose
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.2 Pose
Pose followed expression on the list of the portrait photographer's priorities. A sitter's pose was intended to assist idealization by highlighting physical beauty. Photographers were required to select a pose that displayed the sitter to advantage.
If your sitter be tall and thin, or short and stout, select a pose which may render such peculiarities least prominent …A sitter's personal defects may be frequently concealed by the choice of position.
‘Defects’ in this context included physical blemishes and disfigurement. Such imperfections could be bathed in shadow or excluded altogether by careful framing, vignetting or masking.
Activity 7
Please take a few minutes to study this delightful (I think) portrait of Walter J. Eastwood. Do you get the feeling that there is something about this picture that you can't quite put your finger on? Can you think what it might be?
Comment
Activity 8
Look closely at Image 17, a photograph of two young clerics. Then answer the two questions below.
Image 17: Photographer/Painter: Hills & Saunders, Oxford. Subject: Two churchmen, identities unknown, c.1900.
1. Compare the pose of the sitters with the poses that you and your friends might adopt in front of the camera today. Make a list describing 19th-century poses and another describing 21st-century behaviour.
Comment
2. If you have identified any differences between then and now, how should we interpret them? Think about our earlier exploration of the meaning of expressions and how these have changed over time.
Comment
4.3 Characterization and sexual stereotyping
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.3 Characterization and sexual stereotyping
The choice of pose was also intended to echo the limited positive characterization of the expression. Distinctions were inevitably drawn between poses regarded as suitable for males and those considered appropriate for females. Men were allowed greater variety of poses than women.
The pose of a lady should not have that boldness of action which you would give a man, but be modest and retiring, the arms describing gentle curves, and the feet never far apart.
For both men and women it was routine practice to find head and body set at slightly different angles. This prevented a wooden appearance by introducing a slight suggestion of movement into the composition. In portraiture in general it was normal for the gaze to follow the direction of the head.
Activity 9
Spend at least 5 minutes comparing these portraits of men and women. Look in particular at the position of arms and legs, the set of the head and the direction of the eyes.
What differences in pose can you identify between the men and the women? Make a note of your findings. Do you think that these differences help to suggest different qualities? If so, what qualities can you identify?
Image 18: Photographer/Painter: M. Boak, Driffield and Pickering. Subject: Mr Thomas Nicholson, Walton Grange, 1860s.
Image 19: Photographer/Painter: Vandyke & Brown, Liverpool. Subject: Unknown male, full length, standing.
Image 21: Photographer/Painter: C. Ferranti, Bold Street, Liverpool. Subject: Unknown female, full length, seated, 1860s.
Image 22: Photographer/Painter: Liverpool Portrait Co, Liverpool. Subject: Unknown female, full length, standing, 1860s.
Image 23: Photographer/Painter: Lonsdale Abell, Leeds. Subject: Unknown female, three-quarter length, seated, 1876.
Comment
4.4 Groups
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.4 Groups
If we agree that the posing of individuals carried messages for the viewer it makes sense that the posing of family groups can similarly be made to convey suggestions about the family and its character.
Activity 10
Scrutinize the arrangement of the sitters in the family group in Image 24. In such groupings it's important to consider the overall effect, the position and pose of each individual, the direction of heads and eyes and to note who is touching whom.
Note down some words to describe the arrangement of the individuals.
Comment
Do you think the arrangement subtly influences your attitude to this family?
Answer
The man's position at the apex obviously embodies his pivotal role as head of household.
4.5 Touch
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.5 Touch
Let's consider more closely the nature of touch and physical contact normally displayed in Victorian studio portraits.
Activity 11
Compare Images 25 and 26, which are portraits of Edward, Prince of Wales and his fiancée Alexandra. Notice in particular the different poses. These pictures formed part of a series issued by the reputable Belgian firm Ghémar Frères on the couple's engagement in 1862. Image 26, in which Alexandra has both hands on Edward's shoulders, provoked critical comment in the British press.
Pretty, is it not? – sentimental, sweet, and lover-like? Very – only not quite probable, or in the best taste. That a young lady may have stood, in that attitude oftender watching, at the chair ofher future husband, is likely enough, – but she would never think of being photographed at so confiding a moment. The lover would certainly object to the artist ‘posing’ his intended in any such way, and the lady herself would object to it with still greater vehemence. Can Paterfamilias possibly believe that the Prince and Princess allowed themselves to be shown after this fashion to the general gaze?
What conclusions can be drawn from the critic's comments? Note down your thoughts.
Image 25: Photographer/Painter: Ghémar Frères, Brussells. Subject: Edward, Prince of Wales and Alexandra, Princess of Denmark, on their engagement in 1862.
Image 26: Photographer/Painter: J. Dugdale, Bath. Subject: Edward, Prince of Wales and Alexandra, Princess of Denmark, on their engagement in 1862.
Comment
4.6 Touch and feeling
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.6 Touch and feeling
Activity 12
Images 27 and 28 represent the conventional pose of the newly-wedded couple who would visit the studio sometime after marriage to commemorate the event with a portrait. (We shall look at wedding portraits again later in the unit.)
How would you characterize the nature of their physical contact? Jot down a few words to describe what you see.
Image 27: Photographer/Painter: F. Beales, Boston, Lincolnshire. Subject: Wedding photograph of William Henry Toyne Brocklesby and Susan Smalley, 1890.
Comment
4.7 Exceptions
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.7 Exceptions
Activity 13
Do you think the contact between the people in Image 29 is different from that in Images 27 and 28? Can you describe the nature of the contact?
Comment
Images like these were produced for the commercial market, just like the earlier portrait of John Ruskin (Image 13). They were taken by local photographers and sold to visitors as novelties. The lunch baskets and tea cans add interest. These portraits of local colour were the precursors of the picture postcard and similar images depict fishermen and women, milkmaids and so on. They should not be confused with privately commissioned portraits of people in working dress.
Activity 14
Pit brow lasses were distinctive and controversial in Victorian society because they wore trousers. Some even feared that this habit could lead to a loss of femininity and moral degeneration in the wearer. A number of 20th-century critics have described these pictures as titillating and exploitative – the soft porn of the Victorian era!
Can you now identify any evidence in Images 30 and 31 that could be used to support such an interpretation?
Comment
4.8 Backgrounds and accessories
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.8 Backgrounds and accessories
Purpose
By now you have sufficient familiarity with early portraits to know that photographers regularly used painted backdrops and accessories to create a sort of stage set within the studio. These backgrounds came into widespread use with the introduction of the carte de visite in c.1860. Until the Second World War, 2 scenarios remained popular: the interior setting with windows, curtains, table and chair; and the parkland setting with trees, balustrade, rustic bench or stile. This choice of backdrop provides the most visible evidence of photography's debt to portrait painting.
Activity 15
Study this (I think) lovely picture of Hiram and Lily Broadhurst with their sons George and Arthur, taken in 1911. It provides a good example of a painted interior backdrop which includes wainscoting, French windows and floor-length curtaining. We know that Hiram Broadhurst worked in the tram sheds in Denton near Manchester when this portrait was taken.
What purpose does the backdrop serve in the portrait? For example, do the painted backdrops have any connection with the theory of idealization?
Image 32: Photographer/Painter: Anon. Subject: Hiram and Lily Broadhurst with their sons, George and Arthur, 1911.
Comment
The backdrop confers anonymity by divorcing people from their actual settings and circumstances.
So we can conclude that backdrops were indeed intended to play a part in the idealization process.
Idealization
If we look at the surprisingly small range of items commonly used as accessories we notice that they, too, confer prestige by association or continue the limited positive characterization. Children are often pictured with prestigious, manufactured toys. Do you remember Walter Eastwood's classy tricycle in Image 16? Boys hold whips or hoops suggestive of street games and the outside world; girls clutch dolls or baskets of flowers which evoke the domestic realm.
The book probably appears more frequently than any other item. It is used to imply education at a time when many people were illiterate.
Image 33: Photographer/Painter: Alfred Peplow, Hastings. Subject: Three-quarter length seated female, c.1890.
A photograph album (as in Image 33) frequently takes the place of the book. The purpose-designed album with apertures to display the photographs appeared on the market together with the carte de visite in the early 1860s. With its tooled leather covers, metal clasp and gilt edgings, the album was designed to imitate the appearance of the Victorian family bible.
Activity 16
Can you think why the photograph album should be designed to resemble the family bible?
Comment
Personal possessions
Most accessories in studio portraits were supplied by the studio. However, it was not uncommon for sitters to introduce items that held a special significance for them, such as children's toys, competition trophies and awards gained in the course of a career. As we should by now expect, any personal items were intended to reflect credit on the sitter.
If we can distinguish the routine studio accessory from the prized personal possession, we may be able to elicit a few more nuggets of information about the sitter.
Activity 17
Can you identify anything in Image 34 that may be a personal possession rather than a studio accessory?
Image 34: Photographer/Painter: A. Whitla, Manchester. Subject: Four children, details unknown, c.1880.
Comment
4.9 Lighting
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.9 Lighting
Natural light
Activity 18
Can you identify the source of light used to create this portrait?
Comment
Image 36: Subject: Engraving from Adolf Miethe (1902) Lehrbuch der Praktischen Photographie, Wilhelm Knapp, p. 158.
The light entering the studio could be controlled by using clear, stippled or ground glass and by fitting blinds, curtains and reflectors. Direct light gave sharpness, diffused light softness and they were used in conjunction. Reflected light gave detail to the shadowed side.
Idealization
Early photographers were adept at using natural lighting to idealize the sitter. Manuals of good practice were full of advice on adapting the lighting to soften wrinkles and wreathe blemishes in shadow.
For ladies of a certain age, who often give the photographer a deal of trouble, it is advisable to employ a very soft light falling in front, which softens the wrinkles and protuberances of the face, and obliterates the disagreeable shadows formed by those parts.
Image 37: Photographer/Painter: W. Hildyard, Manchester. Subject: Unknown female, three-quarter length, seated, c.1870.
Image 38: Photographer/Painter: Bullock Bros., Stockport. Subject: Unknown female, head and shoulders vignette, c.1880.
Images 37 and 38 demonstrate how the appearance of the sitters could be affected by the use of lighting. The woman in Image 37 displays some lines and furrows, while the smooth face of the woman in Image 38 shows evidence of retouching on the shadowed side.
Limited characterization
The other function of lighting was, inevitably, to assist characterization. Since Robinson advised portrait photographers to show sitters as moderately calm ladies and gentlemen, the lighting in commercial work is usually quiet and uniform, without dramatic contrasts of light and shade. This was intended to suggest tranquillity, harmony and self-control, in keeping with the limited stereotypical characterization discussed previously.
The use of lighting to convey dramatic characterization is more evident in Victorian art photography. Certain qualities were associated with particular effects.
4.10 Retouching
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.10 Retouching
In addition to the efforts made before exposure to show sitters at their best, portrait photographers regularly retouched the negative to remove or improve any perceived defects or blemishes. Before the 1860s, in Britain retouching was generally criticized for interfering with the ‘truthfulness’ of the photographic image. By the mid-1860s, however, the issue became the subject of intense debate and discussion and the journals published details of the various techniques available at the time. Retouching became an established component of commercial practice, though a small minority of purists continued to denounce it. Image 39, from the frontispiece of an early manual on retouching, shows a before-and-after portrait intended to demonstrate the benefits of the practice.
Image 39: Subject: Frontispiece from The Art of Retouching, by Burrows & Colton, revised by J.P. Ourdan, E. & H. Anthony & Co., New York, 1880.
By working on the negative photographers could tone down or remove spots, freckles, warts, bags under the eyes and double chins, reduce waists, neaten figures and make those adjustments necessary to satisfy the concerns of both photographer and sitter. A certain amount of retouching would be undertaken as a matter of course, such as the removal of blemishes or freckles. The issuing of proof prints before the final order gave customers the opportunity to suggest any adjustments they would wish to have introduced.
Retouching was not confined to the negative. Work could also be undertaken on the surface of the photographic print. This was common on enlargements. As the retouching medium can age differently from the print surface these touches can often appear obvious and crude today.
4.11 Colouring
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.11 Colouring
The photographic print could also be ‘improved’ by the application of colour on the surface of the finished print. In the 1840s painters of miniature portraits, who faced redundancy after the introduction of photography, sometimes found employment hand-colouring daguerreotypes. The colouring of portraits commanded an additional charge and suggests that pictures chosen for colouring held a special significance for their owners. In the average high-street studio, the colourist never normally saw the original. Simple written instructions accompanied the print: eyes, blue; hair, brown; dress, green. The colour artist did whatever was necessary.
This is probably a good place to note that the tonal translation of colour in 19th-century photography was incorrect. Blues and violets usually translated too light, so skies were a constant problem. Yellows and reds, however, translated too dark. A blue-eyed blond with freckles could present real problems! So it's never a good idea to infer colours from early black and white photographs. Orthochromatic negatives were introduced towards the end of the 19th century.
4.12 Key concepts
4 The portrait tradition: methodology
4.12 Key concepts
We can conclude that the ideas relating to idealization, positive characterization and sexual stereotyping had a significant influence on the treatment of all 4 components of the portrait: expression, pose, background accessories and lighting.
Victorian family photographs (like most other primary sources) are therefore selective, partial and biased. Early photographers regarded it as part of their proper function to emphasize those aspects that were considered at the time to be good and conceal those regarded as bad. It was no part of their duty to uncover or present the ‘real picture’.
You can sometimes learn more of the ‘real’ story behind the image when you interview relatives who appear in the photographs. Photographs can play a useful role in oral history interviews by
sparking recollection. But tread carefully – some photographs may be invested with great emotional significance for their owners.
Capturing commemorative events
5 Camera culture
Capturing commemorative events
This section explores the events commemorated in photographs.
Activity 19
Begin by listing the occasions when we choose to use our cameras today. It might help to think back over the times when you have used your camera in the last 12 months.
Comment
Does your list include some or all of the following?
- holidays
- outings
- weddings
- christenings
- anniversaries
- visits from or to relatives
- family reunions
- sports days and performances
- visits by important people
- new car, new house, new baby
- national events: jubilees, street parties
- local carnivals and street parades
- works outings and events
- festivals, e.g. Christmas
- birthday parties
- pets.
Now see if you can assign the various occasions to one of the following categories:
- rites of passage
- special occasions and celebrations
- prized possessions.
You may have thought of occasions which do not fall within my categories, but I hope you found that the majority of them can be assigned to those headings. So we can assert that in general the majority of snapshots taken in Britain in the early 21st century celebrate special occasions.
This activity reveals that, even today, our family photographs provide only a selective and partial record. Most of us don't bother to photograph the routine, ordinary aspects of our everyday lives. What, then are the consequences of neglecting the mundane in favour of the special? Are we continuing to portray an idealized version of family life following traditions inherited from the past? To answer this we need to look at the occasions when our ancestors chose to be photographed.
We might also want to think about changing our practices. Once we realize that we are working within a set of inherited and unexamined conventions, we may want to challenge them. We might, for example, decide to use the camera to record the mundane, or to comment on aspects of our personal lives about which we feel strongly and have something to say.
5.1 Records of achievement
5 Camera culture
5.1 Records of achievement
Image 41: Photographer/Painter: Thomas Miller, Wellingborough. Subject: Male wearing mortar board, c.1880.
The Victorian family album validated success. In keeping with the theme of idealization, our ancestors courted the camera to commemorate events and achievements that brought credit to the individual and reflected glory on the family. Evidence of delinquency or failure was excluded or rigorously edited.
Portraits of the new graduate in gown and mortar, the mayor in robes, or the uniformed policeman displaying the latest stripe or badge provided visible proof of career success and achievement in the workplace.
Successful sportsmen and women changed into the appropriate kit at the studio and posed surrounded by the cups, medals, awards and distinctions gained in competition.
5.2 Prized possessions
5 Camera culture
5.2 Prized possessions
Prized possessions also feature in the family album. Family pets, cats and dogs were frequently taken to be photographed in the studio and often appear in portraits taken outside the home. Some photographers advertised equestrian studios where horses could be photographed. Bicycles, motor-cycles and motor cars proved popular in later years.
5.3 Special occasions
5 Camera culture
5.3 Special occasions
Image 43: Photographer/Painter: Warwick Brookes, Manchester. Subject: Helene Witte in her gown for a fancy dress ball.
Special occasions could include events of family, local or national significance. Those wealthy enough to attend important balls and dances would often visit the studio and change into their ball gown or suit for the portrait. Local events could include amateur dramatics when sitters would attend the studio to be photographed in costume. Whit week processions in northern towns required each child to have a new outfit. So children would be taken to the studio before the parade and would probably be photographed again later in the day as part of a group in the procession. National events such as coronations and royal anniversaries often provoked an appearance in front of the camera.
Similarly it was customary for people to visit the photographer whenever they went on holiday, whether on visits to friends or relatives, or on a day-trip to the seaside. Even those who stayed at home visited the wakes and fairs which were sure to include numbers of photographers ready to take advantage of the free-spending mood engendered by the holiday feeling.
5.4 Rites of passage
5 Camera culture
5.4 Rites of passage
Image 44: Photographer/Painter: Anon. Subject: William Arthur Brown, the son of James Brown standing in the doorway of Brown & Sons Studio, 148 Camberwell Road, London, c.1899.
Most portraits, however, were taken to celebrate rites of passage, such as christenings, comings of age, engagements, weddings and anniversaries. The photographs bore witness to a successful progression through life, provided eloquent testimony to the social conformity, virtue and respectability of the Victorian family, and provided ample opportunity to flaunt wealth and possessions. Because the photographs were taken in the studio they were not documentary in character. They tell us little or nothing about how the occasion was celebrated, only that the family regarded the occasion as significant.
Most family historians want to discover the identity of the sitters. Our ancestors rarely troubled to put names to portraits. Why should they bother when they knew their own relatives? (A reminder to us to be diligent in recording details about our own photographs!) You will be better placed to solve this difficult problem if you can identify the occasion celebrated in the portrait and can link that occasion with an approximate date for the photograph. The studio's location can also help. So if you have a wedding portrait taken in the early 1870s in the Chester area you may be able to assign possible identities using information found in marriage registers or census records.
We need to spend some time now seeing if we can identify the occasion behind the portrait. This is not always as easy, since the visual subtleties are often now lost to us and we have ceased to observe some of the rituals of the past.
Obviously those rites of passage which required distinctive dress are the easiest to recognize, so let's start with an easy one.
Christening
Image 45: Photographer/Painter: James Pennington, Aigburth. Subject: Unknown woman and child, 1860s. Christening portrait.
The christening dress here identifies the occasion.
In the normal course of events, Victorian couples would produce their first baby within a year or so of the wedding. Christening usually took place anything from 4 to 8 weeks after the birth.
In rich Victorian families christenings could be elaborate affairs emphasizing the high social rank into which the infant was born. The christening robe itself could represent a lavish statement of family fortunes. Great care was usually taken to display the robe to best advantage in the portrait.
New babies were pictured with their mothers and in the case of wealthy families with their nurses. Nurses often wore uniforms, but not always. So we must not assume automatically that the woman with the baby was its mother.
Skirts and breeching
Look carefully at Images 46, 47 and 48.
Image 47: Photographer/Painter: Morgan & Laing, Greenwich. Subject: Douglas Matthew Watson born 1 November 1874. Likeness taken 21 July 1877.
Image 48: Photographer/Painter: Anon. Subject: William Henry Roberts (born 20 January 1864) and his father(?), c.1867.
Victorian and Edwardian boys and girls were dressed in skirts in their early years. Boys were ‘breeched’ between the ages of about 3 and 5 – that is, they were put into their first pair of short trousers. Families must have been extremely proud on this occasion because photographs documenting this change of status survive in great number. Diaries, too, often record occurrences of breechings in the family.
Without the manuscript information on the reverse of Michael Seymour's portrait (Image 46), we may have had difficulty identifying the sex of the child. Toys and accessories can sometimes provide useful clues. Whips, hoops and guns are the accoutrements of (guess who?) little boys; dolls are the usual companions of little girls. (Michael Seymour is holding something but I cannot make out what it is.)
Boys in breeching portraits (Image 47) could be photographed on their own, as in the portrait of Douglas Matthew Watson. Douglas was nearly 3 when his sartorial transformation took place. Sometimes the breeched boy appeared with other members of his family including parents and/or siblings.
Birthdays
Photographers encouraged mothers to bring their children to be photographed each year around the date of their birthday as this was seen as the best way of keeping a record of their progress and development. Images 49–52 are photographs of Max Witte whose mother took him on regular visits to the superior studio of the Manchester photographer Warwick Brookes. Max's father was a German emigré and highly successful shipping merchant. The family lived in Bowdon in Cheshire.
Some photographers actually issued birthday albums to encourage annual visits. The album itself is sometimes featured as an accessory in later portraits. The society photographer Richard Speaight made particular reference in his autobiography to the mother of Myrtle Farquharson, who brought her child to his studio 2 or 3 times a year – thereby implying that such behaviour was the exception rather than the rule.
In low-income families, of course, the state of the family finances would have determined the frequency of visits to the photographer.
Confirmation
Image 53: Photographer/Painter: Henry Knight, St Leonards on Sea. Subject: F.E. and Amynora Field, 1877.
You may find it difficult to read the verso text, so here it is for you.
The handwriting reads: F.E. Field aged 15; Amynora Field aged 11. Confirmed by the Bishop of Chichester 2 May 1877 at St Mary Magdalenes, St Leonards on Sea, Sussex.
The printed text reads: Cabinet by Henry Knight. Patronized by Her Majesty the Queen, Photographer to the Crown Prince & Crown Princess of Germany
The girls in this photograph are not bridesmaids, as I thought on first seeing this photograph. The photo celebrates confirmation. Confirmation was an important and serious event for many teenagers in Victorian Britain, as their surviving diaries can testify. Young people were confirmed in great swathes. Age at confirmation was often determined by the timing of a bishop's visit.
5.4 Rites of passage (continued)
5 Camera culture
5.4 Rites of passage (continued)
Young adults
Activity 20
Look closely at Images 54 and 55. Can you identify the two features which distinguished a girl from a young woman in the Victorian and Edwardian period?
Comment
The daughters of the wealthy were presented at Court. These Drawing Room Presentations were governed by strict regulations. After the nobility and squirearchy only certain professions were admitted – the daughters of the clergy, of naval and military officers, of physicians and barristers. This important occasion required special dress, entailed considerable expenditure and was usually celebrated by a photograph at one of the elite London studios. Presentation dress had to display a number of obligatory features: low décolletage, short sleeves; a full train fastened at the waist and an ostrich-feather head-dress.
Engagement and marriage
Of all rites of passage celebrated in the Victorian family album, those taken at the time of engagement and marriage are by far the most numerous. This testifies to the importance vested in marriage by the Victorians. The custom of commissioning oil or miniature portraits at the time of an engagement or marriage was well established before the advent of photography. Photography enabled couples on more modest incomes to indulge a practice that became widespread among working-class families by the 1880s.
Since the treatment of engagement and marriage portraits was so similar it can be difficult to distinguish between them. We shall deal with them together for this reason. Family circumstances would, of course, dictate whether the individuals could afford to commemorate both events with a photograph.
By the middle of the 19th century, high society weddings had become fully-fledged social extravaganzas involving enormous expense and considerable planning. The white wedding dress was a Victorian introduction but remained largely confined to the wardrobes of the rich and privileged. The choice of the exclusive studio of Elliott and Fry confirms that the young woman in Image 57 belonged to a wealthy family.
Activity 21
Image 58: Photographer/Painter: J.R. Crosse, Salop. Subject: Details unknown. Wedding portrait, 1890s.
Do you remember the wedding portraits we looked at earlier (Images 27 and 28)? The majority of Victorian brides wore the best day-dress they could afford. So although Image 58 appears at first sight to be no more than a studio portrait with conventional props and accessories, it is, in fact, a wedding photograph. By the 1880s, buttonholes and flowers start appearing in these portraits, providing supporting evidence of the occasion.
Does any other element of Image 58 suggest an engagement or wedding?
Comment
Images 59, 60 and 61 were clearly taken on the same occasion. They demonstrate that the placing of photographs in the album can be significant. It is good practice to keep a careful record of the arrangement as you originally found it.
Image 62: Photographer/Painter: Frederick Batho, Cheetham Hill, Manchester. Subject: Engagement portrait of Albert Fox and Ada Batho, c.1895.
We know from family records that Image 62 was an engagement portrait. It was taken by the woman's father, Frederick Batho, a commercial portrait photographer with a studio in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester in the 1890s (Image 63). I like the symbolism of the balustrade dividing the engaged couple who are not touching one another – though am not so keen on the fact that she has been placed slightly behind her intended!
Couples in the 19th century were photographed around the time of the wedding but I cannot be more precise than that. Oral evidence confirms that it was customary in the first half of the 20th century for couples to attend church to get married and then proceed to the photographer's studio for the wedding portraits. By that time photography had become an integral part of the ritual. There are tales from this date of newly-weds arriving at the studio to find themselves at the end of an enormous queue and deciding to come back the following Saturday rather than endure a long wait. This fate may have befallen the couple in Image 64, for on the back of the mount in manuscript are the words: ‘Our wedding taken week after wedding Feb 11th 1886’. The portrait appears to include the bridesmaids.
Honeymoons
Image 65: Photographer/Painter: Alfred Pettit, Keswick. Subject: Ben Naylor and his new wife Carrie, née Birchall, on their honeymooon in the Lake District, c.1880.
After marriage came the honeymoon – but only for the affluent. Few among the working classes could afford a honeymoon, so the honeymoon portrait immediately conferred prestige.
By the early 19th century, fashionable middle-class couples would begin their honeymoon trips immediately after the wedding, unaccompanied by other relatives. The completely private honeymoon only became wholly fashionable in the Victorian era when the idea of marrying for love was an accepted ideal. Since the middle classes sought status by aping the very rich, they too began to take honeymoons. The very rich travelled to Europe, while the comfortable classes visited the Lake District or the Isle of Man. Ben and Carrie, the couple in Image 65, had their honeymoon portrait taken in Pettit's. (Image 66 shows an advertisement for Pettit's Fine Art Gallery in the Lake District.)
Image 66: Photographer/Painter: Anon. Subject: Advert for Pettit's Fine Art Gallery in the Lake District.
Wedding anniversaries
Silver and golden wedding anniversaries were often commemorated with a portrait. Many examples follow the pattern of the studio portraits taken for engagements and weddings, with the couple taken individually and together.
These portraits would have been carefully designed to face each other in an album.
There is another common treatment where the anniversary couple was portrayed surrounded by their children. Such portraits regularly excluded sons- and daughters-in-law, as in Image 69.
5.4 Rites of passage (continued)
5 Camera culture
5.4 Rites of passage (continued)
Death
The final rite of passage, death itself, permeates the Victorian family album. Throughout the 19th century it was common practice, following the death of a relative, to commission memorial photographs. The overwhelming majority of these memorial photographs feature the person as living, not dead.
Image 71: Photographer/Painter: Robinson & Thompson, Liverpool. Subject: John, Maud and Lilian Atkin, c.1870.
The memorial photograph assumed a wide variety of different guises depending on the needs and circumstances of the grieving relatives. They could vary from simple cartes de visite, like Images 70 and 71, to framed enlargements on opal glass. Identification of the memorial nature of a portrait is easy when it was issued on special mourning cards complete with black banding at the edges and suitable phrases such as ‘In memory of’, ‘Affectionate remembrance’ and so on. However, that was not always the case.
Image 72: Photographer/Painter: G. Gregory, Manchester and C. Duval, Manchester. Subject: Left: Unknown male, full length, standing, 1870s. Right: unknown male, three-quarter length, standing, c.1890.
Can you see the connection between these 2 portraits, which came from the same album?
The three-quarter length portrait on the right has clearly been copied from the earlier, full-length portrait. The earlier print dates to the 1860s/70s, the later print to the 1890s. We know the copy print was not taken from the original negative because it isn't sharp. Although it carries no obvious identification, the copy print is probably a memorial photograph, produced after the man had died, for distribution to members of his family. When looking through your own albums, be alert for examples like this.
5.4.10 Post-mortems
Activity 22
How do Images 73 and 74 differ from the usual studio portraits of children? Make a note of the more obvious differences.
Comment
Image 75: Photographer/Painter: W. Smith, Cross Roads. Subject: Maud Mary Binns, 1888. Post-mortem portrait.
Image 75 is the post-mortem portrait of Mary Maud Binns, presumably photographed in bed in the family home. Although the inscription on the verso gives the date of death as 2 August 1888, her death certificate records that she died of pneumonia on 21 September 1888. (Remember the importance of checking apparently reliable sources.) Maud's father was a grocer and the family lived at Cross Roads, Bingley, near Keighley in Yorkshire. The photographer, W. Smith, was local and therefore readily available. His work suggests that he was not a high-class operator.
6.1 The rise of the itinerant photographer
6 Portraits in the open air
6.1 The rise of the itinerant photographer
Happily, not all early family photographs were taken inside conventional studios. Sitters were frequently photographed in the open air or in temporary, makeshift studios. Portraits were taken in the street, at the fairground, at the seaside, at local beauty spots and in the parks and commons where town dwellers went for relaxation and entertainment on Sundays and holidays. Itinerant photographers who worked these venues would set up shop for the day, the week or longer, depending on situation and circumstance.
Image 76: Photographer/Painter: Anon. Subject: Mr George Thorne, Designer of the Oakhampton Railway Bridge and a native of Barnstaple, North Devon. May 1864 (handwritten on verso).
Photographers could exploit a clientele of day-trippers and temporary visitors by offering a while-you-wait service. For this they employed a process known as the wet collodion positive. A sheet of glass was coated with sticky collodion, immersed in the light sensitive silver nitrate and exposed in the camera while still wet. (It remained sensitive only while it was wet.) The exposed plate was chemically processed and then bleached. When placed against a black background (or coated with Bates's Black Varnish) the image appeared positive. The absence of the need for daylight printing speeded up and simplified the process. For a small additional charge, the glass plate was housed in a case or frame. The whole procedure took about 5 minutes from beginning to end. In Britain these images became known as cheap glass positives; in America they were called ambrotypes. Image 76 is an example of this.
The glass positive was gradually supplanted by the ferrotype (also called tintype). In the ferrotype the glass base was replaced by a thin sheet of enamelled iron. The ferrotype was cheaper and less liable to break but also generally poorer in quality since the highlights were rarely white. Since there was no negative involved in the process the ferrotype images were usually laterally reversed. However, ferrotypes could be produced in multiple copies using cameras with multiple lenses and scissors to cut the thin sheets of iron after exposure and processing. The ferrotype became popular in Britain from the 1870s.
Image 78: Photographer/Painter: John Thomson. Subject: The Itinerant Photographer on Clapham Common’, from John Thomson & Adolphe Smith, Street Life in London, 1877/78.
There was great variation in the equipment used by different itinerants. Basic necessities included a camera, tripod and some form of dark box (usually on wheels) in which to sensitize and process the negative. Dark boxes could be crude adaptations of prams or market barrows, or neat, purpose-designed, business-like constructions.
Some itinerants could afford to invest in horse-drawn caravans which combined living accommodation with glazed studios and darkroom facilities. These vans were moved from venue to venue by horses hired for the journey. The wooden structure to the left of the steps into Micklethwaite's studio (Image 79) was a temporary extension which would have been dismantled and stored while the van was on the move.
Other itinerants worked in canvas tents pitched on the sands or in the fairground.
There was a similar variation in the pattern of itinerant activity. Some studio proprietors might take to the road in the summer months and some itinerant photographers might take up entirely different occupations to tide them over the winter months. Itinerant operators usually worked on spec rather than to commission and they were frequently regarded with contempt by established studio proprietors with good connections.
We are going to devote a little attention to outdoor work in the street and at the seaside, as these venues feature prominently in the typical family album.
6.2 Street photography
6 Portraits in the open air
6.2 Street photography
Many portraits were taken outside the home and in the garden or, in the case of urban dwellers, in the street or back yard. Local studio proprietors could be commissioned to attend at the customer's house, in which case they would impose an additional charge to cover the extra time and effort involved. Itinerant operators regularly patrolled suburban streets and villages in search of speculative work. Their prices undercut those on offer in local studios. Weekdays would find women, children and servants at home in their workday clothes. Sundays found the whole family dressed in their best and therefore (by common consent) suitably attired to appear before the camera.
Just like their equivalents in the studio, street portraits could also be taken to celebrate rites of passage, special occasions and to record prized possessions. It is sometimes very difficult to know if the accessories in street portraits actually belonged to the sitter, were borrowed from more prosperous neighbours or were brought along by the photographer to encourage sales.
Studio conventions in street photography
Activity 23
Look at Images 81 and 82. Given your knowledge of conventional studio portraiture, can you see any similarities between studio and street practice?
Image 81: Photographer/Painter: Anon. Subject: Two friends photographed in the back yard of a house in Autumn Street, Horwich.
Image 82: Photographer/Painter: S. Williams. Subject: Mrs Roberts with her daughters Hannah (left) and Margaret (right).
Comment
Informational content
Obviously for the purpose of historical record, portraits taken in the context of the family home can be more informative than those taken inside the studio with its make-believe settings.
Activity 24
Compare the children in Images 84 and 85. What can we say about their different circumstances, using evidence from the photographs?
Image 85: Photographer/Painter: Anon. Subject: Wilfred, Walter and Harry Ramsden outside the family home in Boardman's Buildings, near Moss Lane, Pendlebury, c.1905. Their father was a miner at Agecroft Colliery.
Comment
Groups
The large group portrait came to commercial prominence in the 1880s, probably as a result of the widespread introduction of dry plate negatives. These negatives could be bought ready made over the counter. They did not require immediate processing and they reduced exposure times significantly. The group portrait involved the production of a single negative and a potential sale to each member of the group. Customer costs were kept low without injury to the photographer's profits. School, work and leisure group portraits became regular components of the family album.
Image 86: Photographer/Painter: Photographer unknown. Subject: Lynton Street, Ordsall, Salford, c.1925.
Children living in deprived urban areas in the 1920s and 1930s could find themselves in street group photographs such as Images 86 and 87. Their families could not afford individual portraits of their children but could find the few pence charged for a single copy of the group picture. The mother of a child in the Lynton Street portrait (Image 86) was bringing up 3 children on a First World War widow's pension. Lynton Street was situated near the entrance to the Manchester Docks. This may account for the presence of a single black child.
The significance of the Waterloo Street group (Image 87) is that it features Robert Roberts who in later life wrote The Classic Slum, an account of life in Edwardian Salford that has become required reading for social historians of the period.
6.3 Seaside photography
6 Portraits in the open air
6.3 Seaside photography
Image 88: Photographer/Painter: Anon. Subject: New Brighton beach featuring the canvas tent studio of James Ravenscroft, 1880s.
Photography appeared in British fairgrounds in the late 1850s. At this time inland fairground operators were expanding into new venues on the foreshores of the developing seaside resorts. Penny profile cutters had been a regular component of fairground entertainment. So it was only a matter of time before cheap photographers encroached on their sites and banished the competition.
Activity 25
Can you make any comments about these portraits taken on the beach?
Image 90: Photographer/Painter: Arnell & White, Bridlington and Scarborough. Subject: Woman sitting on a stone wall with young girl.
Comment
Activity 26
Mainstream photographers, as we have seen, identified with traditions in the fine arts and aspirations of refinement and moral improvement. However, fairground and seaside operators exploited photography as a form of cheap popular entertainment. This and the fact that itinerants usually worked on spec rather than to commission ensured that they were generally viewed with contempt by the photographic establishment.
Contempt pervades the article entitled ‘Five minutes in a photographic caravan’ which appeared in The Photographic News in 1886. Click on 'View document' below to read the article, then note down your answers to the following questions.
How does the author convey the idea that the itinerant is an inferior photographer?
Comment
How does the behaviour of the ‘frolicsome’ foursome compare with what we know of the behaviour of couples in conventional studios?
Comment
How do the foursome manage to turn photography into entertainment?
Comment
Activity 27
What does Paul Martin's picture tell us about the behaviour of the Victorians at the seaside?
Comment
Activity 28
The atmosphere of these holiday venues gradually filtered through to the portraits taken there. Judging by Images 92 and 93, what effect did this relaxed atmosphere have on the photographs taken at the seaside?
Comment
7 Writing
7 Writing
You have now almost reached the end of this unit. You should now be aware:
- that photographs are shaped by a set of conventions based on ideas and practices which are not immediately apparent;
- that photographs, like other documentary records, are partial and biased;
- that photographs, like other documentary records, require critical analysis and careful interpretation;
- of the importance of contextualization in analysing photographs.
Do this
Now you have completed this unit, you might like to:
- Post a message to the unit forum.
- Review or add to your Learning Journal.
- Rate this unit.
Try this
You might also like to:
- Find out more about the related Open University course
- Book a FlashMeeting to talk live with other learners
- Create a Knowledge Map to summarise this topic.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Anon. (1861) ‘Carte de visite portraits’, The Photographic News, vol.5, no. 150, pp.341–2.
Anon. (1863) ‘Photography and bad taste’, The Photographic News, vol.7, no.240, 10 April, pp. 174–5. Reprinted from the London Review.
Anon. (1884) ‘By the bye – the stronger will’, The Photographic News, vol.28, no. 1346, p.388.
Anon. (1886) ‘Five minutes in a photographic caravan’, The Photographic News, vol.30, no. 1434, pp. 133–4. (Anthology Item 34)
Balwin, G. (1991) Looking at Photographs: a guide to technical terms, Malibu and London: The J. Paul Getty Museum in association with British Museum Press. (An attractive useful guide to technical terms for the non-specialist. It is written from an American perspective and is now in need of revision.)
Bell, C. (1806) Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme. (Anthology Item 3)
Linkman, A. (1993) The Victorians: Photographic Portraits, London: Tauris Parke Books. (Anthology Item 30)
Petsch, M.M. and Vogel, H. (1865) ‘On pose and lighting’, The Photographic News, vol.9, no.352, 2 June, pp.257–8.
Robinson, H.P. (1973 [1885]) The Studio and What to Do In It, New York: Arno Press. (Anthology Item 33)
Wall, A.H. (1859) ‘Photography as one of the fine arts’, The Photographic News, vol.3, no.69, pp. 193–5.
Wall, A. H. (1861 a) A Manual of Artistic Colouring, As Applied to Photographs: a practical guide to artists and photographers, London: Thomas Piper. (Anthology Item 32)
Wall, A.H. (1861b) The technology of art as applied to photography’, The Photographic News, vol.5, no. 131, 8 March, pp. 109–10.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit:
Text
‘Photography in art history’, Linkman, A., 1993 in ‘The Victorians: photographic portraits’, London, Tauris Parke Books, 1993. With permission from the author
Figures
Figure 1: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 2: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 3: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 4: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 5: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 6: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 7: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 8: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 9: Photo: Phillips, The International Fine Art Auctioneers/ Bridgeman Art Library
Figure 10: Photo: Bridgeman Art Library
Figure 11: Natioanl Museum of Photography, Film and Television/ Science and Society Picture Library
Figure 13: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 14: Courtesy of David Hooper
Figure 15: Courtesy of David Hooper
Figure 16: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 17: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 18: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 19: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 20: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 21: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 22: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 23: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 24: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 25: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 26: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 27: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 28: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 29: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 30: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 31: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 32: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 33: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 34: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 35: © National Portrait Gallery, London. www.npg.org.uk
Figure 37: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 38: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 40: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 41: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 42: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 43: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 44: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 45: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 46: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 47: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 48: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 49: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 50: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 51: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 52: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 53: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 54: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 55: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 57: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 58: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 59: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 60: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 61: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 62: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 63: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 64: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 65: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 67: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 68: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 69: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 70: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 71: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 72: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 73: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 74: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 75: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 76: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 77: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 79: Bedfordshire County Record Office
Figure 80: Bridlington Library
Figure 81: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 82: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 83: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 84: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 85: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 86: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 87: Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
Figure 88: Courtesy of Nino Manci
Figure 89: National Museum of Photography, Film and Television/ Science and Society Picture Library
Figure 90: National Museum of Photography, Film and Television/ Science and Society Picture Library
Figure 91: Photo: V & A Images/ Victoria and Albert Museum
Figure 92: Courtesy Audrey Linkman
Figure 93: Three Young Men 'horsing about' on the sands', Anon. © National Gallery of Scotland
Unit Image
Courtesy the Documentary Photography Archive/ Greater Manchester County Record Office
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