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I found this set of photos on the internal memory of an early compact digital camera made by the company Oregon Scientific, founded in 1989. Oregon Scientific was responsible for a number of firsts in consumer digital technology, including, in 2003, the world’s smallest digital camera. This camera is the same size as a creditContinue reading “Got My Mojo Working”

The Kodak disc camera appeared on the market with great fanfare in 1982. Kodak’s chairman at the time, Walter Fallon, ahead of the biggest publicity campaign Kodak ever launched, called disc photography “the new engine that will drive amateur photography”. Although presented as ultra-modern on its release, which in some ways it was, the discContinue reading “The New Engine”

It goes without saying that the ways in which family photos get made, collected and disseminated has changed a great deal in the last couple of decades. Simply from talking to the younger members of my close extended family, I know that the physical family photo album is, for this generation, and presumably for futureContinue reading “Ghost in the Machine”

This collection of photographs comes in 11 identical volumes, and is just shy of 500 images. They begin in August 1931 and end in May 1938. The story begins with a couple on a camping holiday in St David’s, Wales. They were touring around in a Riley Nine motorcar. Apart from these first few pages,Continue reading “Adrian, Rosemary, Niall and Me…”

In the influential Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art, written in 1889 by PH Emerson, the eminent Victorian photographer and writer is at pains to make the reader aware of the difficulties in trying to distinguish between the ‘professional’ and the ‘amateur’ in the field of photography: ‘ There is one obstacle that weContinue reading “The Post-Victorian Eye”

I have recently been working on an exhibition, part of which includes photographic equipment made by Johnsons of Hendon. The roots of the company can be traced back to the 18th century and the assayer John Johnson, whose Johnson & Sons firm would go on to provide chemicals for the Fox-Talbot calotype photographic process fromContinue reading “Sun Print”

In America, where tintype photography first took off in the 1860s, tintypes represent an important national record and cultural bond. Their rise in popularity coincided with the desire for durable keepsakes prompted by the upheavals of the Civil War, which began in 1861. The hold they have on the American imagination is evidenced by theContinue reading “American Gems”

Pasted on the last page of this album is a map. A thick red line runs across this map from west to east, beginning at Istanbul on the Black Sea, travelling across the Middle East and ending at the Taj Mahal in Delhi. During the 1960s and 70s, this alternative, down-to-earth tourist trek was knownContinue reading “Long Shadows”

The cover of this album is bright red. When open, it measures 2½ft x 18in. It weighs about 2kg and is packed with photos. On the inside cover, is a blown-up newspaper photograph of the Kray twins with their mother, Violet, beaming with pride in her boys. Throughout the entire album, there is no indicationContinue reading “War Babies”

This collection comes in three volumes, each with a heady smell of damp. The earliest album starts in the 1930s, but most of the photographs date from the 1950s. There are more than 40 colour photos, which, for albums of this period, is an extraordinary amount. Occasionally, some 1950s albums could, perhaps, contain three orContinue reading “Gevacolour”