Sepia Saturday 185: Ready with the Bulls-Eye, come rain or shine

A couple of weeks ago I used scans of a couple of amateur lantern slides to illustrate an article on Dovedale. This week's Sepia Saturday prompt of a rainy street scene gives me an opportunity to use a couple more from the same set, as well as featuring another recent purchase, a popular box camera which preceded the ubiquitous Brownie by almost a decade.


Unidentified couple seated on bench, c.1900-1905
Lantern slide (83 x 83mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The delightful image depicts a couple enjoying what might have been a quiet glass of beer, seated on a bench outside a pub, if it hadn't started to rain. At least I think the white, nearly vertical streaks must be rain drops; after some deliberation I've decided that if they were merely scratches made during processing, they wouldn't all be roughly the same length (about 10cm). Since rain drops fall between 7 and 18 miles per hour (Source: Yahoo Answers), I estimate that this corresponds with a shutter speed of between 1/30 and 1/60 second. What has made this photograph possible is the bright, albeit slightly dappled, sunlight which accompanies the light shower of rain. The lack of self-consciousness in this candid snapshot is unusual, considering it was probably taken around 1900-1905.


Unidentified group seated on lawn, c.1900-1905
Lantern slide (83 x 83mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
From what I've been able to tell, the very wide-brimmed and low-crowned straw hats in this second lantern slide were popular shortly after the turn of the century, which correlates well time-wise with the high-collared, wide-sleeved white blouses and long dark skirts. Here a group of three women and a young girl, the last facing away from the camera, are seated on and around a picnic blanket, placed in the middle of a well-clipped lawn surrounded by shrubs and trees. They are boiling a small kettle on a primus stove and a teapot waits patiently on the corner of the blanket. Presumably they're in a private garden, as two chickens can be seen making an appearance from the left hand edge of the picture.


No 2 Bulls-Eye Kodak
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The image would probably have been produced by contact printing from the original negative onto a thin glass plate, thus producing a positive transparency. Unless a portion of it was masked off - an unlikely scenario, given the composition of the shots - the original negative would therefore have been roughly the same size as the slide. The 83 x 83mm measurements of the square slides equate to the 3½" x 3½" format of 101 roll film and the short-lived 106 cartridge roll holder. The No 2 Bulls-Eye Kodak, originally manufactured by the Boston Camera Manufacturing Company in 1892, but later taken over by Kodak from 1895, was the first camera to use numbered paper-backed roll film. Both this and the No 2 Bullet Kodak, introduced in March 1895 in competition with the Bulls-Eye, used 101 format film, as did a number of other box cameras:

Camera	Film Format	Dates of Manufacture
Boston Bull's-Eye	3½" x 3½"	1892-1895
No 2 Bullet Kodak	101	Mar 1895-1902
No 2 Bulls-Eye Kodak	101	Aug 1895-1913
No 2 Eureka	106	Jun 1897-1899
No 2 Falcon Kodak	101	Sep 1897-Dec 1899
No 2 Bullet Special Kodak	101	May 1898-Apr 1904
No 2 Bulls-Eye Special Kodak	101	1898-Apr 1904
No 2 Flexo Kodak	101	Dec 1899-Apr 1913
No 2 Plico Kodak	101	Mar 1901-1913

Rotary shutter, No 2 Bulls-Eye Kodak
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Of all these models, the No 2 Bulls-Eye was the most successful, Coe (1988) estimating a total of roughly 257,000 to have been manufactured, and rivalled in sales during the 1890s only by its diminutive cousin the Pocket Kodak, which used the smaller 102 format film. Although I haven't found anything definitive about the rotary shutter used in the Bulls-Eye, other Kodak box cameras were manufactured with shutter speeds of 1/35 to 1/50 seconds, which corresponds well with my calculations of the exposure time using rain drop tracks.


Bulls-Eye held by Grand Duchesses Olga (left) and Anastasia (right)
Taken by unknown photographer, Imperial Yacht Standart, c. 1911
Images courtesy of Royal Russia & Jos Erdkamp
Jos Erdkamp has a wonderful example of a No. 2 Bull's-Eye Kodak, complete with its original carrying case, a film cartridge, an instruction booklet, and a portrait lens attachment. He has also written an account - unfortunately in Dutch, of his detective work (Erdkamp, 1995) unearthing an intriguing fact, that the Romanov family were amongst the many enthusiastic users of the Bulls-Eye camera.

References

No. 2 Bull's-Eye Kodak (1896), on Antique Kodak Cameras from the Collection of Kodaksefke.

f/Stops and Shutter Speeds, on The Brownie Camera Page.

RUSSIAN IMPERIAL YACHTS: On Board the Imperial Yacht Standart, on Royal Russia.

Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures, United States: Crown Publishers.

Coe, Brian (1988) Kodak Cameras: the First Hundred Years, East Sussex, United Kingdom: Hove Foto Books, 298p.

Erdkamp, Jos (1995) De Romanov Kodaks, in Photohistorisch Tijdschrift, Issue 3 of 1995.

Sepia Saturday 180: A Life on the Ocean Wave

The Sepia Saturday image prompt this week reminded me of maritime uniforms, even though it was taken in quite a different setting, and I'll take the opportunity to use some images relating to this theme from my own family collection. You're welcome to start the music below to get you in the mood with an appropriate soundtrack, and then read on.




Willem Hendrik Schipper (1882-1932)
Photo button (12.4mm diameter) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
We all have those relatives who appear in family albums, but about whom we know very little, and my great-uncle Willem Hendrik Schipper is one of those. Surviving genealogical records are mainly centred around an individual's birth, marriage and death. Census enumerations, which add to the basics in generating a basic framework of family history research in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, have not been kept in the the Netherlands. As a result, all I have to anchor the dates of a biographical history for Willem, since never married or had any children, are his birth in 1882 at The Hague and his death at sea in 1932, somewhere between Sierra Leone and Amsterdam.


There are a few documents and items of ephemera which fill in some of the gaps, such as a "Testimonial of Attendance" for Willem at the Ambachtschoool te 's-Gravenhage, dated 1 July 1899, and a funeral notice in the form of a newspaper clipping. However, what we do have are plenty of photographs, both loose and in a loose-leaved album compiled by his younger sister (my great-aunt Gien) in the 1920s and 1930s. Using these, I have been able to piece together more of a story.


Hendrik (Harry) Jan & Willem Hendrik Schipper, c.1901-1905
Cabinet card by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne
My grandmother and her three older siblings grew up in The Hague, where their father Jan Schipper (1857-1921) worked as secretary to the Director of Queen Wilhelmina's Cabinet at The Binnenhof. According to my mother (who presumably learned it from her mother, since Willem died when she was only eighteen months old), Jan Schipper became very embittered after a disagreement with his new boss, perhaps also from being passed over for promotion, which reflected on his behaviour at home and made life very unpleasant for his wife and children. Willem and his younger brother Harry both 'escaped' from this odious atmosphere by joining the merchant navy at a fairly young age.


Willem Schipper, c.1909-1912
Silver gelatin print by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne

Willem Schipper joined Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd as an engineer in 1909, where his "zeal and devotion to duty earned him quick promotion." He appears to have spent most of his early service in the Dutch East Indies at a time when the Empire was reaching its maximum extent. The photograph above shows him in front of a lifeboat on an unknown ship, with what I believe is the rank of 2nd Engineer.

Willem Schipper (at right) and friends, Weltevreden, Batavia, c.1910-1915
Studio portrait, silver gelatin print (96 x 61mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Life in the tropics was not all work and no play, as is amply demonstrated by this studio portrait of Willem relaxing with two friends or colleagues in Weltevreden, the suburb of Batavia (then capital of the Dutch East Indies, now Jakarta) which housed the Dutch administrative headquarters. The cigarette in his right hand is indicative of what would becopme a life-long habit - rarely does Willem appear in photographs without a cigarette or pipe.


Batavia, 1910-1915, courtesy of YouTube
This series of silent film clips which I found on YouTube were probably taken from a moving motor vehicle, which must have been one of the few in Batavia at that time. It gives a very good feel fpor the ambience of the colonial suburbs and busy merchant quarters, complete with wagons, carriages, rickshaws and trams. Another YouTube film of 1920s life in Java includes a clip showing the arrival of a ship at the wharf, together with crowds of colonial men in their whites and solar topees.


Suikerfabriek (Sugar factory), Soemberhardjo, Java, c.1912-1915
Silver gelatin print mosaic (161 x 98mm) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Willem must also have found time for some leisure travel, as demonstrated by this mosaic of a sugar factory at Soemberhardjo in central Java pasted into his sister's album. The factory was built in 1912, thus providing an earliest date for the photograph, and is apparently still operating, complete with geriatric steam locomotives used for hauling the sugar cane.


2nd Engr. Willem Schipper and friends on board S.S. Gelria, c.1913-1916
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
There are several photographs in the album taken on board the SS Gelria, a passenger steamer in service with KHL from May 1913 to March 1916 and again from 1919 to 1931, and it seems likely that Willem served on this ship during the earlier period. The Netherlands retained neutrality during the Great War and their ships continued to operate. The image above shows Willem (seated at left) apparently being congratulated on his promotion to Senior 2nd Engineer by Kapitein Brunt, Junior 2nd Engineer Visser and 1st Marconist (wireless operator) Vuyck.


Willem Schipper and friends on board S.S. Gelria, c.1913-1916
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Another group portrait on the Gelria shows him with junior officers, each with only one stripe on their epaulettes, seated on and standing around cane and wicker furniture in a more formal arrangement.


Willem Schipper and friends, off Calabar, West Africa, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (71 x 102mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
En route from Amsterdam to the East Indies the ships often paused off the coast of West Africa. Willem and his colleagues took advantage of the opportunity to barter for curios with the locals who paddled out to the ship at anchor in the port of Calabar in Nigeria.


Willem Schipper and friends, SS Prins der Nederlanden, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (85 x 111mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The steamship Prins der Nederlanden was a passenger ship of the SMN line (Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland/Netherlands Steamship Co.) which operated between 1914 and 1935, so I must presume that Willem was a guest on board when this group photo was taken.


Willem Schipper on board the S.S. Zeelandia, c.1915-1920
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne
After some years in the East Indies, illness forced a return to the Netherlands, but he was quickly offered a position on the Royal Dutch Lloyd ship SS Gaasterland. On this and other ships, perhaps including the SS Zeelandia (above), he spent at least a decade plying the trade routes of the North and South Atlantic, calling in at ports on the coasts of several continents.


Unidentified ship, possibly at a South American port, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (87 x 58mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
I found several crew lists from the SS Gaasterland arriving in New York in 1920 and 1921 but, juding from number of photographs from South America in the album, supplemented by a postcard sent to his recently widowed mother from Buenos Aires in July 1921, most of his trips headed further south. The print above shows timber and other goods being loaded from a wharf onto a cargo ship (or possibly unloaded) which unfortunately has part of its name clipped, leaving only "...LAND ...ERDAM" visible at the stern.


Unidentified ship, Patagonische Kanalen (Patagonian Channels), c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (87 x 116mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Some of his journeys ventured a little further afield almost into the Pacific, visiting the western coast of Chile via the Patagonian Channels. This ship also appears to be carrying a cargo of timber on the deck.


Willem Schipper (at right) and colleagues at work, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (78 x 91mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In a rare shot, Willem appears in his working clothes with two colleagues, apparently engaged in some real work (or at least supervising it), the now ever present pipe clasped firmly in his right hand. Another shows a group of people repairing a winch aboard the SS Rijnland.


Willem Schipper and friend, Funchal, Madeira, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (67 x 109mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne

Criss-crossing the Atlantic regularly allowed them to stop off periodically in Funchal, the capital town of the Portuguese island of Madeira, where they stayed at the Grand Hotel Belmonte, strolled through the municipal gardens, wandered the narrow cobbled alleys, and caught a ride from Monte down the steep streets on mountain basket sledges, which still catch the unwary tourist today.

Chief Engineer Willem Schipper and colleagues, c.1930
Silver gelatin print (64 x 98mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In late 1931, while on a voyage of the coast of West Africa, Willem became very ill and he wrote to his sister and brother-in-law just before Christmas that he had seen doctors in Grand Bassam (Cote D'Ivoire) and Freetown (Sierra Leone), who diagnosed heart problems. He rested for a short while at the Grand Hotel in Freetown, but died on board ship somewhere between Sierra Leone and Amsterdam on 12 February 1932. A letter to his mother from an Evangelical Lutheran Missionary who travelled with him off the West African coast makes it clear that he "felt that he would not live long."


Silver ashtray, possibly from East Indies
Collection of Brett Payne
I inherited this rather battered and well used silver ashtray from my Dutch grandparents some years ago, and even used it for a while until I gave up smoking. I always thought that the engraving had a somewhat oriental look to it, but it wasn't until recently, when I started examining the photographs in Aunt Gien's album in greater detail, that I realised that it may well have been picked up by Willem in Dutch colonial Batavia. The maker's marks on the base don't mean much to me, but perhaps a knowledgeable reader will recognise them and enlighten me. I'm not sure that I feel quite the same way about it, now that I know it may have been so closely associated with Willem's heart disease, and therefore his death.

Sepia Saturday 177: Let the Children Kodak, the beloved Brownie camera

Among a group of old photographs given to me a few years ago by a friend, collected by her father in New Hampshire, are several mounted prints of identical size which, judging by the clothing worn by the subjects, appear to have been taken in the first few years of the twentieth century. The prints measure roughly 2¼" x 3¼" (58 x 80mm) and are mounted on card about 4" x 5" (100 x 125mm) in a variety of colours, including white, cream, grey and green. Sadly none of these four photographs have the subjects identified, and the provenance has long been lost, so all I have been able to deduce is that they are probably from New Hampshire or Massachusetts, and that the last two are of the same person.


Unidentified mother and daughter, undated estd. c.1900-1905
Silver gelatin print (83 x 56mm) mounted on card (128 x 102mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne Some Rights Reserved
The first, rather charming glossy print is in what we would now refer to as landscape format, and is pasted on a gray and white coloured card with an embossed pattern of wavy lines and two series of loops, and with a bevelled edge. The young girl and an older woman, who look alike enough to be mother and child, are kneeling/crouching on a leaf-strewn lawn adjacent to a narrow path which curves along a hedge and behind them under the shade of a tree, and then disappears around a corner. The narrowness of the path suggests a private garden, and the fallen leaves presumably imply that it is autumn. The woman's long skirt, light-coloured blouse with slightly puffy sleeves narrowing at the elbow and pompadour hairstyle, together the girl's large-sleeved jacket and a bow at the top of her head all point to a date in the early 1900s, say between 1900 and 1905.

It's worth noting that there appears to have been some light leakage, either in the camera or during film removal, causing a wavy band of over-exposure - or fogging - along the top edge of the print. The photographer has chosen a good viewing angle so that the sun, to the right of and slightly behind the camera, and already fairly high in the sky (so probably taken in the late morning or early afternoon), casts some shadows on the subjects's faces and clothing, illuminating them with relief rather than flattening the tonal variation.


Unidentified girl with dog, Undated, estd. c.1905-1915
Silver gelatin print (83 x 56mm) mounted on card (128 x 102mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne Some Rights Reserved
The second photo, in portrait format, is also marred with a little over-exposure along the upper left-hand edge and in the lower half of the image, although the fact that it is not just confined to the edges suggests that it may be due to a poor choice of lighting angle, rather than careless handling of the rollfilm. The mount is dark greenish-grey coloured card (it looks greener in the scan than in reality, due to my enhancing the rather faded image) with a neatly printed white rectangle framing and drawing attention to the print.

This teenaged girl wears a long skirt and a pouch-fronted top with a sailor-style collar, the broad lapels tied at the front, and a large bow at the back of her head. Although still from the first decade or two of the twentieth century, I suspect this dates from a little later than the first photo, say between 1905 and 1915. She is standing by a staircase leading up to a clapboard house with wooden shutters. A creeper growing up the side of a pillar on the edge of a verandah has very few leaves, so perhaps this is was also taken in autumn. The dog appears to have been caught in mid-scratch, but it's in the middle of the over-exposed bit, so even if I did know more about dogs I probably wouldn't be able to identify the breed.


Unidentified woman and shrubbery, Undated, estd. c.1905-1910
Silver gelatin print (83 x 56mm) mounted on card (128 x 102mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne Some Rights Reserved
The next two portraits show the same young woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties to early thirties, posing amongst palms, ferns and succulents, probably originating from a much warmer climate. Despite the external view of a series of second-storey windows in the background, I have come to the conclusion that both snapshots were taken in a conservatory or glass-roofed courtyard, as there is plenty of light coming down from directly above, but it looks too well manicured (one of the potted plants even has a label) to be outdoors. Besides, she appears to be dressed for winter weather, rather than the warm conditions necessary for the cultivation of such fauna. Perhaps this accounts for her slightly unhappy demeanour - the humidity in there is causing some discomfort.


Unidentified woman and shrubbery, by undated estd. c.1905-1910
Silver gelatin print (83 x 56mm) mounted on card (128 x 102mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne Some Rights Reserved
Both are mounted on greyish card with bevelled edges, although of slightly different shades and ornamentation - one has a fancy patterned white border around the print, the other a simple embossed, grey rectangular border. The woman's clothing consists of a high-necked blouse, a double-breasted full length coat with velvet collar and sleeves which are wide at the shoulder but tapering towards the elbow. She is wearing leather gloves, a large corsage of roses, and a wide-brimmed hat with substantial floral-style decoration on the top to match the flowers. All of these combine to suggest to me an approximate date of between 1905 and 1910.

Neither photo looks over-exposed, the fuzzy patches of light in the second image probably being due to the dappled sunlight. Both prints have a matt finish, with the slight silvery sheen in darker areas characteristic of many silver gelatin prints from this era, produced by degradation of the emulsion.


"Let the Children Kodak"
1909 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
Besides the print/mount size and the fact that they were taken in bright sunlight, there is another common feature that the sharper-spotted of readers may have noticed - all four are taken from an approximately waist-high viewing position. With regard to the print size, since by far the majority of photographs were contact printed during the pre-War years, we can assume that it equates to the film size. The 105 and 120 roll film formats produced by Eastman Kodak Ltd., both measuring 2¼" x 3¼", were introduced in 1897 and 1901, respectively, narrowing the type of camera likely to have been used to one or more of the following new models introduced around the turn of the century:

• the Folding Pocket Kodak (1897-1899) & No 1 Folding Pocket Kodak (1899-1915) both used 105 film
• the No 2 Brownie (1901-1933) & No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie (1904-1915) both used 120 film

No 2 Buster Brown box camera, 1906-1923, by Ansco
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
There were also several competing companies which produced similar models, such as Ansco's No 2 Buster Brown box camera introduced in 1906. A feature included with all of these devices was the prismatic viewfinder, which enabled a user to frame a picture by holding the camera at waist level, in either portrait or landscape orientation, and looking vertically downwards, just as the child is doing in the 1909 advertisement for a Brownie above.


"The Brownie Family"
1909 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
The first Brownie was introduced in February 1900, and was soon joined by a range of models, initially marketed very firmly towards use by children. The No 2 Brownie, ostensiby being operated by the young girl with two bows in her hair, second from right in the above advertisement, was by far the highest selling. First sold in October 1901, by the time the Model F was discontinued in 1933 several million had been manufactured.


"There's no better fun than picture taking ... The Brownie Family"
1909 Advertisement by Eastman Kodak Co.
Image © and courtesy of Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
Kodak advertisements appearing throughout the first decade of the twentieth century reinforced the message that the family of Brownie cameras belonged in your family, and that there was a Brownie for every age and pocket. The No 2 Brownie cost a mere $2.00, and the more versatile No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie just $5.00. For the first time, cameras and photography were within the reach of almost everyone.


No 2 Brownie Model F, 1924-1933, by Eastman Kodak Co
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
This No 2 Brownie from the Tauranga Heritage Collection is a Model F, manufactured a couple of decades after the four photographs displayed above were taken, but the overall design had changed little. The phenomenal success of the Brownie, originally marketed for children in a massive media campaign, meant that within a decade a huge number of American and British families owned a box camera, even if the majority of them were not actually being used by children. The claim that by 1910 a third of all Americans owned a camera (Jenkins, 2005) seems hardly credible, but certainly by 1921 over 2.5 million No 2 Brownies alone had been produced (Coe, 1978), making this by far the most popular of the models which used this film format.


View of river scene with building and boat, undated
Silver gelatin print on Velvet Velox paper (2¼" x 3¼") mounted on embossed "Brownie" brand brown card (4" x 5") with bevelled edges
Taken with No 2 Brownie camera, by an unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp
These two images (above and below) show the front and reverse of another example of a mounted print from a No 2 Brownie, displayed by antique camera enthusiast Jos Erdkamp on the web site which documents his collection of early Kodaks. Jos, who very kindly took the trouble to send me detailed scans and gave me permission to reproduce these images, writes:

It is not rare, it is not expensive, it even is not pretty, but it is the camera that recorded our history during the first part of the 20th century. The No. 2 Brownie was made in large numbers: several million and at least 2,500,000 before 1921. Together with the 2A Brownie, which took a slightly larger photo and was also made in several millions, it was the camera that could be found in most families. In all the snaps these cameras have taken, the small and also not so small events of the first half of the last century are documented. For this it deserves a place of honor in camera history.

Reverse of No 2 Brownie card mount (4" x 5")
Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp
The printed text on the back states:

Velox print showing the size and quality of negative made with the No. 2 Brownie Ccamera and No. 2 Folding Pocket Brownie Camera - Mounted with Kodak Dry Mounting Tissue - Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, N.Y.

This, together with the text "Velvet Velox" inserted on the print itself, suggests to me that the photo may have been a commercially produced promotion sample, rather than an ordinary amateur snapshot. However, the colour and embossed frame of the mount is very similar to that of the fourth print in my own collection, and was obviously a commonly used design.


No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie, 1904-1915, by Eastman Kodak Co
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
The other camera mentioned is the No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie, the smallest of the simple folding Brownies produced by Kodak in these early years. It is shown being used by a young lad, perhaps 9 or 10 years old (fourth from right), in the 1909 advertisement above, and also took 120 format rollfilm. Along with its predecessor the No 2 Folding Brownie, only 250,000 were produced between 1904 and 1915.


Bullock cart, Philippines, 1898
Silver gelatin print (2¼" x 3¼") on glossy embossed card mount (4" x 5")
Taken with Folding Pocket Kodak camera, photographer unidentified
Image © and courtesy of Jos Erdkamp
Another possibility for the 2¼" x 3¼" format print are the Folding Pocket Kodak (1897-1899) and its successor the No 1 Folding Pocket Kodak (1899-1915), both of which used 105 rollfilm and sold for $10, some 200,000 of which were produced. Jos Erdkamp has a very nice example of such a photograph, taken in the Philippines in 1898, which is mounted on glossy white card conveniently embossed with the words, "Folding Pocket Kodak." The style of mount, using glossy pale grey card embossed with a zig-zag pattern, is similar to that used for the first of my examples above.

During and after the Great War (1914-1918) the range of camera models which used 120 format film expanded dramatically, although the No 2 Brownie continued to enjoy great popularity for many years. At the same time, the fashion for mounting prints appears to have changed somewhat, and it became far more common to supply the customer with loose unmounted prints, which were of course a lot cheaper. However, if you have similar mounted prints dating from before the war, it may also be possible to identify the camera with which they were produced. I welcome contributions, so if you find any in your own family collection, please do get in touch - they may provide interesting material for a follow up article.

I hope to feature more film/print formats in the future, as I feel the matching of prints to cameras is a poorly studied field in photohistory. In the mean time, I expect a visit to Sepia Saturday's other contributers this week will reveal a few more child-oriented themes.

References

Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures, United States: Crown Publishers, p 89-91, 99-102.

Erdkamp, Jos (nd) No 2 Brownie (1901) and Folding Pocket Kodak, on Antique Kodak Cameras from the Collection of Kodaksefke.

Frost, Lenore (1991) Dating Family Photos 1850-1920, Victoria, Australia: Lenore Frost, 127pp.

Gustavson, Todd (2009) Camera, A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital, New York: Sterling, 360pp.

Jenkins, Karen (2005) Brownie, in Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Photography, Warre, Lynn (ed.), London: Routledge.

West, Nancy Martha (2000) Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia, University Press of Virginia.

Sepia Saturday 174: Village Meeting, 10 am, under the Horse Chestnut tree

I'll admit right at the start that my photograph this week has little in common with the Sepia Saturday prompt, except that it shows a number of figures seated in a line, from top left to bottom right of the image, ostensibly facing towards the left of the camera. I hope you'll excuse this ill-disciplined straying from topic, but I'd like to attempt a deconstruction of a somewhat unusual image which has no obvious clues as to who the subjects are, or what event is illustrated.


Unidentified group photograph
Postcard format photograph by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Another recent eBay find, this unused standard postcard format photograph came without any documentation as to location or provenance. The almost vertical, slightly curved black line in the middle of the photograph slightly displaces vertically the two halves of the image. This suggests that it was printed from a cracked glass plate negative, the printer not having been very careful about aligning the two pieces of glass.


Reverse of postcard format photograph by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The back of the postcard has no photographer's imprint, and the stamp box is of an unusual stylised design that I can't recall coming across before. It's not listed on Ron Playle's Real Photo Stamp Boxes pages either. The use of glass plate camera of this format/size suggests that the event was important enough to warrant having a photographer on hand to make a record, but the fact that he didn't use postcard stock with his name printed on it suggests that he may not have had en established studio.


The figures are seated on chairs arranged on a well clipped lawn in front of a large tree shading some shrubbery to the right. The shape of the leaves and texture of the bark are very suggestive of the horse chestnut tree, as shown below, according to Wikipedia "widely cultivated in streets and parks throughout the temperate world," presumably as a feature and for the deep shade it produces. Of course it was also the friend of many a schoolboy, at least in my father's time, as the producer of conkers.


Horse chestnut tree Aesculus hippocastanum
Image courtesy of Alvesgaspar/Wikipedia
Nigel Aspdin, who also had a look over this photograph, thinks the leaves look fairly fresh; in the English Midlands, by September they tend to become rather tatty, so this was probably taken in mid-summer.


Behind and to the right of the tree trunk is a pillar or plinth of some kind. It may be for a sundial, although it seems a little high for that, and I can't make out any sign of the characteristic shape of a gnomon. There is also a T-shaped item set at a roughly 45 degree angle in the middle ground, but I've not been able to come up with any ideas as to what that might be.


To the left of the tree trunk, and roughly at the same distance from the camera as the pillar, is a multiple strand wire fence, with two Union Jacks on poles affixed to it, say about 5 paces apart. Although it cannot be seen in the photograph, there is probably a road or country lane on the other side of the fence. The flags appear to have been placed there to mark the venue.


To the far left, and apparently reversed right up to the fence, is a commercial van, possibly a Morris 1929 light van or similar make/model, as shown in in the slightly inappropriately named Austin7nut's Flickr photostream here and here. Seated in the open back of the van is a man in more casual attire - waistcoat and shirt sleeves - seated on a stool, with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. I think he's waiting for the talking to be over, and have speculated that he may be a caterer. When the talk is over perhaps he will, with the aid of others on the near side of the fence, off-load the food and transport it onto tables somewhere behind or to the left of the camera.


There are six men and three women, all fairly well-dressed, and probably well-heeled. The men have hats off, the women leave theirs on, as convention dictates for an outdoors gathering. The women's clothing and bar-strap shoes are distinctively late 1920s, with the high-crowned cloche (right) giving way to the deeper brimmed coal scuttle hat (centre). The older woman's brimless hat (left) may be a modified cloche, also typical of the 1920s.


The group seated on the chairs appear to be facing an unseen group of people off to the left of the postcard view, the toe of one man's shoe just visible in the extreme lower left corner of the image.


The woman standing in the centre of the seated group appears to be either addressing the gathering or answering questions. The man seated at far left, whose jacket and trousers are not quite as well-fitting as those of the others, also faces the crowd. It's perhaps also worth noting that few of the chairs match.


The remaining subjects are studiously avoiding eye contact with the gathering in front of them. Both of the men at the right, one with a nicely waxed moustache and a hat on the ground next to his chair, the other adjusting his pince nez, avert their gazes to their left. The latter, however, has considered the occasion important enough to wear a rose in his buttonhole. The rest either look down to the ground or pointedly off into the distance, perhaps towards where tables are being set up for lunch. Five of the men - all except the more relaxed gent on the far left - have their legs crossed, which may or may not have any significance.


Are they feeling uncomfortable with what the older of the three women is saying? Alternatively, perhaps she is answering some awkward questions from members of the audience. Perhaps they are just bored, and looking forward to lunch.

Who are they? Nigel suggests they might be engineers, professionals, management, etc. However with the women present, and given the pre-Second World War time frame, I'm inclined to think it far less likely to be a commercial occasion than a meeting of a village committee or the Board of Governors of a local school, perhaps comprising several landowners.


I feel they key to who they are probably lies in the rather odd-looking apparatus under the tree, behind the line of people. It appears to be a sloping board made from rather thick planks, on which several blocks of varying sizes and shapes are arranged. I think I can see some drawing pins, and possibly something like a tap handle. One of the shapes seems very irregular, and is perhaps a mineralogical specimen. What are they, samples, models, prizes? No means of support for the platform is visible, which is a pity, as this might have helped in its identification. If it had been held up by a centrally placed post, for example, I might have suggested something like a rudimentary lectern.

It's position at the time the photograph was taken suggests it may have been used or displayed earlier during the event, but had subsequently been moved out of the way during subsequent discussions.


There are also the remnants of what may be a negative number or title. Such an inscription would have been inscribed on the glass plate negative with black indian ink, thus appearing white on a print, and may have been partly removed prior to the making of this particular print.

Where are they? Is it a private garden or public park? Bearing in mind the fence bordering the lawn, I'm leaning towards the former. Perhaps illustrious Photo-Sleuth readers, including our regular Sepians, will be able to offer further ideas and suggestions. They'll be most welcome. For the moment I'm stumped, and the occasion must remain something of a mystery.

Post Script (4 May 2013)


Thanks to Paul Godfrey, the postcard printer's logo has been identified.

The logo seems to be a stylised W and W, used by the UK paper manufacturer Wellington and Ward of Elstree. I have a few walkies by Barker's Studio of Lowestoft that have this logo. W and W became part of the Ilford Group. I believe the Elstree site was later occupied by Dufay.