I'm not really one for team sports, either as a spectator or participant, but I find I am able to rise to Sepia Saturday's image prompt on this particular occasion. In Bill Nelson's 1904 Grand Tour album which I featured here a couple of weeks ago, there is a sequence of photographs of boat races on the River Thames at Oxford.
One team pulls past the spectator barges, Ref. #09c
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
If it is the famous University Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge, which seems very likely, that traditionally takes place on the last weekend of March or the first week of April, the most recent of which was only two weeks ago - Oxford won by 20 seconds. In 1904, however, it took place on Saturday 26th March and Cambridge won by 4½ to 6 lengths (The Boat Race 1904).
Spectators watch two crews pass the Club House, Ref. #01b
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Traditionally the teams are known as the "light blues" (Cambridge) and the "dark blues" (Oxford), from the colour of their jerseys, but it doesn't look, on the face of it, as though either of these two teams are wearing dark blue. The main race is preceded by a race involving the two reserve crews, called Isis and Goldie for Oxford and Cambridge respectively, and it is possible that these photographs include both the reserve and main race.
Rowers receive some coaching, Ref. #18a
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Listed at number 7 (from the bow) in the main race in the Cambridge boat was New Zealand-born Harold Gillies, considered the father of plastic surgery for his pioneering work on facial reconstructive surgery during the Great War.
Spectators take to the water, Ref. #13a
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Once the race was over, it appears that our photographer, along with many spectators, took to the water, recording the ongoing frivolities.
Barges overflow with spectators, Ref. #01a
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
I can well imagine that the day did not end without one or more of them getting a little damp. However, it is one of the younger spectators on the roof of the barge, at top left, in whom I am particularly interested.
Girl holds a No 1 Brownie box camera
Detail of negative #01a
The teenage girl with long hair wearing a straw hat is carrying a box camera and, after a lengthy comparison of this image with those illustrated in Brian Coe's Kodak Cameras: The First Hundred Years, I've decided that it is almost certainly a No 1 Brownie box camera.
No 1 Brownie camera, from 1903 Kodak Catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
First introduced in October 1901 as a successor to the original model Brownie (1900), it sold for the grand sum of one dollar, produced 2¼" x 2¼" square prints from 117-format roll film, and was an immediate success. It isinteresting to note that of the hundreds of spectators visible in these photographs, the only one carrying a claerly identifiable camera was a young girl.
Packaging for the No 1 Brownie camera
Image © and courtesy of the National Media Museum Collection
Anyone could now afford a camera, but Eastman Kodak marketed the camera specifically towards children, inserting advertisements in popular magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and The Youth's Companion which showed even very young children using them. Even the Brownie name was based on the characters in a popular series of children's books by Canadian illustrator Palmer Cox.
Group in a rowing boat by unidentified photographer
2¼" x 2¼" mounted print, taken c. 1905, probably with a No 1 Brownie
Image © George Eastman House collection
This 2¼" x 2¼" print mounted on white card embossed with a decorative frame, fortuitously picturing a large group in a rowing boat, is from the George Eastman House collection and was probably taken with a No. 1 Brownie. I haven't been able to find many such examples online, and would appreciate hearing from readers who may have similar mounted prints in their own collections.
Oxford, Boys running, Ref. #01c
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Another negative in this sequence shows a number of male figures running, although their attire doesn't suggest that they are in a race, more as if they are in a hurry to get somewhere, perhaps to get a good position to watch the start of "The Boat Race." However, it was a dark shape in the background that caught my eye.
Detail of negative #01c
It appears to be a figure standing on a platform, next to some sort of contraption, perhaps mounted on a tripod. Could this have been a camera of some sort? Upon searching the other boat race images, I discovered that the figure/contraption/platform appeared in front of the club house in the second view as well. This time, the figure is standing behind and partly hidden by the contraption, possibly with his head under a black cloth (below).
Detail of negative #01b
My next discovery was even more exciting. While searching the web for material relating to "The Boat Race," I came across a synopsis of a short documentary film in the IMDb entitled simply, "The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race," made in 1904 by the Charles Urban Trading Company. Charles Urban was a pioneering Anglo-American film producer who specialised in documentaries, travel and scientific films. Many of them have been "rediscovered" and are now available to view online, but sadly I haven't yet found the 1904 Boat Race.
I emailed Luke McKernan, author of Charles Urban: Pioneering the Non-fiction Film in Britain and America, 1897-1925, asking his view on the expanded images and received this informative response:
There were at least three films made of the 1904 Boat Race, by the Charles Urban Trading Company, by the Warwick Trading Company, and by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Urban's film was, according to a catalogue record, filmed from the bow of the Sportsman (presumably a vessel following the race), though they would have had cameramen positioned elsewhere as well.
The blow-ups in the photographs are puzzling, because neither looks like a conventional cine camera, being much too bulky. It almost looks like a photographer's black hood, and there is an outside possibility I suppose that it could be a still camera. However, my thought on seeing the photos is that they show a camera employed by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, who employed 70mm film (unlike the 35mm used by Urban and Warwick) with bulky, electrically-driven cameras. An advertisement for the film states "We have secured negatives of the crews leaving Boat House, and made arrangements to take the finish of the race today". I had thought that they had ceased using 70mm by 1903, but this could be a last-gasp effort with the format.
I thought about the possibility of a still camera being used too, thinking the dark shape could be a photographer's hood, but considered the chances of something that size being used outdoors in 1904 was pretty unlikely. For the moment the identity of the cameraman, if that's what it is, will remain a mystery, but I'm very grateful to Luke McKernan for his help.
The rest of the Sepia Saturday team will likewise be featuring team sports and similar topics this week, and I suggest you you head over there to visit them before you get too carried away watching film clips on YouTube.
I have always assumed that these were photos of the intercollegiate "Bumps" races, which take place in the fifth week of Trinity term. That would place them in late May. Another image from the set, taken in London, shows an advertisement for the play "Cynthia" with Miss Ethel Barrymore at Wyndam's Theatre. As it happened, the play was a flop and had a very short run. It opened May 16. Incidentally, the crew from New College won that year. The barge overflowing with spectators is theirs.
ReplyDeleteThose boats didn't look big enough for all those people standing in them. They must have been quiet people too to keep the boat so steady.
ReplyDeleteEven if that young girl wasn't holding a box camera, I would like that photo just for the record of her concentration.
Wendy - She does seem very keen, doesn't she.
DeleteThose spectators standing casually on the barges are amazing, considering what a precarious position they were in. Wonderfully detailed photographs, all of them!
ReplyDeleteJo - They are incredibly detailed and well composed photos. Amazine, considering that they were taken so soon after the introduction of roll film technology.
DeleteLeave it to you to find the 2 or 3 people in all those crowds to have cameras! But of course you would. :) Those spectator barges look interesting. Some are quite elegant. Are they privately owned? The folks in the fourth picture down - crowded onto & standing in the flat boat - make me think they must have excellent balance to be able to stand like that without rocking the boat. Unfortunately, I'd be over the side in a minute. Interesting & fun post. When I was in Boston several years ago I watched both men & women rowing up & down the Charles river.
ReplyDeleteGail - Looks like that one chap is almost falling in the water. I almost think I'd rather be in one of those small boats than on that flat platform.
DeleteThe barges belonged to the various Oxford colleges and used exclusively by them for viewing and entertaining.The one with the striped awning and the crew pulled up alongside was the Keble College barge, purportedly one of the most ornate. Sadly, most of them have been scrapped but I've heard that a couple have been restored and are still afloat somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Bill, for this additional information. I wonder if this has some bearing on whether that large tripod-mounted device is a still or movie camera.
DeleteMy information about the college barges came principally from Clare Sherriff, who wrote a book about them.
DeleteNow that really made an interesting Sports post, commentd and all. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteboundforoz - I surprised myself, even. ;-)
DeleteA glorious examination of old photographs. Those old box cameras managed to achieve such clarity and focus - the girl with the camera in 1a is a particularly fine example. A post to be read twice and kept forever (just like those old photos)
ReplyDeleteThank you Alan - Actually I may not have been very clear, but most of the photos in this post were taken with a much more sophisticated folding camera. That said, a skilled practitioner could get a very decent image out of a Brownie, particularly if the lighting conditions were just right.
DeleteSo interesting. I didn't know the derivation of the Brownie name and was interested to learn about Palmer Cox. I vaguely remember seeing Brownie building blocks as a child in Canada. I guess they're very valuable now. The photo of the girl with the Brownie is charming. I too am amazed the boats held up with all those passengers. Just finished reading "The Boys in the Boat" - excellent if you're interested in rowing.
ReplyDeleteHelen - I'm not sure I would want to be on one of those barges these days. I imagine there would be a good deal of alcohol drunk, and not just a few folk falling in the water.
DeleteThese negatives provide a wonderful clarity in their digital form compared to a photo print. Is that a result of the camera lens quality or the film? With very fine photos I often wonder what attributes to their quality. Recently when I was looking at a large sale of Niagara stereoviews there was one that showed a photographer and his large camera in a kind of 1870s selfie. It sold for a very high price.
ReplyDeleteMike - There are several factors which contribute to the quality of these negatives, including the type of lens fitted, the improving quality of roll film, the size ofg the film format (the larger formats just have more real estate to work with), and of course the skill of the photographer in assessing lighting conditions and almost certainly using a tripod. It is my guess that even though this was a hand-held camera, he used a tripod for almost all of these shots, allowing him to close down the aperature and use slower shutter speeds.
DeleteThe Niagara seflie shots were popular in the 1860s and 1870s, and are often used in photohistory books, so I'm not surprised it sold for a substantial price.
Brett, the commentary on the races, spectators and cameras was fascinating. I chuckled at the spectators in those flat bottomed boats -- looked like disaster to me. Also always amazed at how your eye picks out cameras of one type or another.
ReplyDeleteOur local rowing club is very active, and they workout at the reservoir just below my house (where I take my Colldubh for his morning run). Photographically their call to fame is their "Nudie" calendar. So well done -- more like art class photos. Thanks for your boating and camera tour.
Joan - It's always fun looking at photographs from a photographer's point of view, and that relationship between photographer, his/her camera and subjects interestes me greatly.
DeleteI don't know if there are any Sepia Saturday rules about nudie calendars, but perhaps if you call it an art class you can get away with featuring one. I imagine they'd have to be pretty strict about who had cameras on hand when those shots were taken.
Well this was an exciting adventure. I love these images, and especially love the girl with the camera. So many stories here to be told. I remember my grandmother telling me she sold newspaper subscriptions when she was around 12, which would have been around 1910, to win a Brownie camera. I have that camera sitting on my bookshelf.
ReplyDeleteT+L - That's a great story about your grandmother and her Brownie camera. I wonder if you have any of the photos taken by her using it?
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