When was the earliest Maori photographic portrait taken?

Originally the earliest Maori photographic portrait was thought to be that of Caroline and Sarah Barrett taken ca. 1853.Ref: A71.462. https://lnkd.in/gi_3Z7f

A recent finding has now revealed an earlier portrait - that of Hemi Pomara taken in 1846 by Antoine Claudet. The hand tinted daguerreotype portrait of Hemi was taken in London (Hemi was taken to Britain in the 1840s). This portrait is in the National Library of Australia's collection and was identified by Elisa deCourcy and Martyn Jolly as part of their research for their forthcoming publication Empire, Early Photography and Spectacle: the global career of showman daguerreotypist J.W. Newland (Routledge, November 2020). See their article in the Conversation

https://lnkd.in/gDrQ-Vd

Photo manipulation before Photoshop at the Met

A couple of years ago I read a really interesting book called "Faking it: Manipulated photography before photoshop" by Mia Fineman which also was the basis for a Photography exhibition held at the Met. I was reminded about this when I saw a recent post in PetaPixel.com.

"Faking it" describes the art of photographic manipulation before Photoshop and shows that photographic manipulation started very early on in the development of Photography.  

Mia talks about seven different types of photo manipulation which are designed to:

1. correct faults in the original photograph and to compensate for the limitations of photography (the example in the article below from PetaPixel falls in this category)
2. create "art" photographs
3. persuade people - for political and ideological reasons
4. amuse and entertain - "novelty" photographs
5. represent images for print
6. create surreal dreamlike images and
7. deliberately change the photographic image (using modern manipulations and composites pre-Photoshop) - she calls - Protoshop....

Its a fascinating read and shows that photographic retouching and manipulation is not new - its a real skill the requires a eye for detail and understanding of proportion, composition and anatomy and patience to re-create reality, its just the tools have changed .....

http://petapixel.com/2015/10/30/this-1902-photo-of-general-grant-is-an-early-example-of-compositing/

For those of us who live down-under the Met has put the entire exhibition online at:       http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/faking-it 

Copyright Carterworks NZ

Fascinating detective work by the Independent

The Independent has had a series of articles showing images taken from glass plate negatives that have recently been uncovered in the Somme area.  It is suspected they were taken by a local amature photographer who would have sold the prints from these negatives to subjects to send home to their loved ones.  One set of negatives is particularly interesting as it shows a woman dressed in an NZ uniform, see the story in the following link....

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/wwi-pictures-unearthed-the-mystery-of-the-man-in-the-lemon-squeezer-hat-8735047.html

 

And another about a different image from this time

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/more-wwi-pictures-unearthed-photographs-found-in-the-somme-come-to-light-8737623.html 

 



Restored image

Original image

Postcard images from this era were very popular and like many I have private images that were sent home (England) during this period. This one is of my great grandfather taken in Ypres (Leper) 1917.    It was probably taken by a local photographer and incorporated into a postcard image. 

Copyright Carterworks NZ

Early colour photography





Sergey Prokudin-Gorskii

One of the most amazing collections of early colour photographs is held by the Library of Congress, known as the Sergey Prokudin -Gorskii collection.  These early colour photos were not easily viewable because the images were made up of three separate black and white glass plates which had been shot simultaneously with three separate lenses covered with a different coloured filter-  red, green and blue.  The colour image was formed when the plates were combined in a specialist viewer.  It is believed Gorskii's camera was similar to one developed by Miethe in 1903.   Between 1909 and 1915  Gorskii travelled around Russia documenting the country at the time producing both colour and sepia images. He managed to leave the country with around half of his collection that was later bought by the Library of Congress. 

 

 

In 2000 the Library started scanning these images and many have now been restored, using the process of digichromatography.  http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html 

 

 

One of the striking things about these images is the fact they are so real, yet they document a time that we most commonly see in black and white or sepia. 

 

 

View of Vitebsk taken in 1912

 

 

Copyright Carterworks NZ

The Nanotechnology of the Daguerreotype

I recently found this interesting article about how early photographs used high tech nanotechnology!