Tag: black and white

Photograms of the Year 1950

Post author By basilisksam
Post date June 23, 2025
No Comments on Photograms of the Year 1950

For me this photograph by Chin San Long is the outstanding image from this volume. Wikipedia has this to say about him:

Lang Jingshan (4 August 1892 – 13 April 1995), also romanized as Long Chin-san and Lang Ching-shan, was a pioneering photographer and one of the first Chinese photojournalists. He has been called “indisputably the most prominent figure in the history of Chinese art photography”,and the “Father of Asian Photography”. He joined the Roral Photographic Society in 1937 and gained his Associateship in 1940 and Fellowship in 1942. In 1980, the Photographic Society of America named him one of the world’s top ten master photographers. He was the first Chinese photographer to take artistic nude shots, and was also known for the unique “composite photography” technique he created.”

It’s well worth seeking out his other work but forget about buying an original print – you couldn’t afford it!

Elsewhere you can find more impressionistic images in keeping with the original aims of the annual.

Portraits are not neglected as you can see from these two examples.

And of course there is more than one obligatory nude.

Photograms of the Year always include long interpretive essays and I was struck by what Bertram Sinkinson has to say: “The tendency to produce bizarre effects in an attempt to be original is receding and in its place we have abundant evidence that the pictorialist is more conscious of his responsibilities in the creative sense.”

I was tempted to do a good, bad and ugly section but some of the ugly work is naff to say the least. One of the weird things that seems to feature in this publication and other photographic books and magazines from the early part of the twentieth century is shots of very young children crying. Why this was popular I have no idea!

Tags black and white, photography, pictorialism, social history

photography

Photograms of the Year

This is “Where countless feet have trod” by G E Pearson and appears in Photograms of the Year 1960.

Photograms of the Year was first published in the 1890s and went on until the early 1960s. It’s a bit of a mystery how it got its name as a photogram is defined as “a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light.” However these annuals published photographs rather than photograms.

This one’s “A Cup of Coffee” by Hindrich Pundsack and I’d classify it as a street photograph, so more documentary than posed.

This portrait by Rune Lindscog belongs to the tradition of portraits influenced by classical paintings. ChatGPT tells us that “Photograms of the Year” was an influential annual photographic publication that began in the late 19th century, playing a key role in showcasing artistic and technical excellence in photography during its time.”

It also states the publication “included reproductions of high-quality prints—especially from the Pictorialist movement, which emphasized beauty, atmosphere, and personal expression in photography.” The work of Kate Smith (see previous post) would be more typical of the earlier volumes of this publication.

Of course no photographic review would be complete with the obligatory cheesecake style of photo though the range of such shots ranged from the more stylised work of Kate Smith to straight nudes.

I’ll post some more photographs from Photograms of the Year in future. Some of the work is still of artistic merit and some is not. Some techniques such as solarisation have aged badly in my opinion, unless you’re Man Ray. Other trends in photography just look plain weird to the modern eye such as portraits of young children, sometimes in tears, which are icky* to say the least.

*A technical term.

Tags black and white, photography, social history

photography

Kate Smith Pictorialist

I recently became aware of a photographer called Kate Smith who was once a well-known pictorialist. Here’s a typical photo “By a Cool Stream.”

According to the Ebayer I obtained this print of “Nymph” from:

“Prominent Pictorialist Kate Smith was born near Watford the daughter of Joseph Gutteridge Smith (1823-1914) a paper manufacturer and Mary Elizabeth Hepburn (1834-1885). She exhibited at the Royal Photographic Society from 1903 until 1934 becoming a fellow of the RPS in 1927. Kate Smith had solo exhibitions at 35 Russell Square in 1925 and 1926 and was described by Cecil Beaton as perhaps “the precursor of Baron Demeyer”. She specialised in photographs of single female figures, nude or in diaphanous costume within romantic landscapes, many of her pictures being modelled by friends in her garden or nearby countryside. They were frequently published in society periodicals such as the Sketch and the Bystander between 1907 and 1914. In 1925 had the unusual honour of addressing the RPS in a lecture describing her approach to photography and working method.”

It is notoriously difficult to obtain information about early pictorialist photographers with the exception of a few famous names such as Clarence H White and Alfred Stieglitz. Web searches often yield little or nothing.

In this instance ChatGPT was able to find more information than other sources and the results were in agreement with the quote above and were referenced so we can probably trust them to be correct:

“Here’s what is known about the British pictorialist photographer Catherine Mary “Kate” Smith:

📸 Background & Life

Born 2 March 1861; died 2 April 1953. Daughter of Joseph Gutteridge Smith, a paper manufacturer, and Mary Elizabeth Hepburn fineartstorehouse.com+2sistersofthelens.com+2en.wikipedia.org+2.
Lived most of her life near Watford (north of London), later moving to Chiswick and in 1936 relocating to Worthing sistersofthelens.com.

🎨 Photographic Style & Subjects

A prominent British Pictorialist, active from around 1903 to the mid‑1930s sistersofthelens.com+1en.wikipedia.org+1.
Her work embraced soft-focus, romantic, mythological themes—placing models in woods and countryside, dressed as dryads, fairies, or classical figures sistersofthelens.com+1timlaytonfineart.com+1.

🏅 Exhibitions & Recognition

First exhibited at the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Salon in 1903; she exhibited almost annually up to WWI and again post-war sistersofthelens.com.
Joined RPS in 1908, became Associate (ARPS) from 1920, showcased her own one‑woman exhibition in 1925, and in that year earned Fellowship (FRPS) sistersofthelens.com.

📷 Equipment & Workflow

Often photographed around her home with a 3¼×4¼ Adams Vesta camera fitted with a Zeiss lens flickr.com+1flickr.com+1.

🌾 Notable Work

For example, Earth’s Bounty (1912) is a classic demonstration of her style—depicting a softly-lit, mythic figure in a wheat field—exhibited at the 1912 Salon flickr.com+1flickr.com+1.

📚 Summary
Catherine Mary “Kate” Smith was a key figure in British Pictorialism, intertwining romantic narratives, soft-focus aesthetics, and myth-inspired themes in her photography. Her steady presence in RPS exhibitions, eventual Fellowship, and evocative images set in nature mark her as a distinguished contributor to early 20th-century fine art photography.”

The website Sisters of the Lens is a useful resource for finding information about other late nineteenth and early twentieth century female photographers.

Tags black and white, History, photography, pictorialism

photography Social history Victorian

Maids: real and theatrical

Post author By basilisksam
Post date June 14, 2024
No Comments on Maids: real and theatrical

This is probably what most people think of when imagining Victorian maidservants.

“Parlour maids” is written in pencil on the back of this cabinet card but that was probably added recently. I suspect they were a mixture of different types of maid from a household as servants each had different functions – scullery maid, chamber maid etc. The two girls seated at the front look rather young but girls started in service as young as eight.

This is rather more Downton Abbey (not that I’ve ever watched it) and again what you’d expect. Note there’s a dog amongst the maids too.

Being a maid was not a glamorous job. The hours were long, the jobs dirty and demanding and women in service would be miles away from their families and rarely given time off to visit them. Nevertheless some families thought well enough of their maids to have them photographed.

Troupes of “maids” were a popular entertainment in the music halls though they bore little resemblance to real maids.

For some reason there was a mania for dressing as dairymaids.

Maids on stage are popular to this day. Hard to date this one but probably the 1930s or 40s.

And here’s Gladys Cooper attended by her maid in the play Excelsior from 1928. I’ll write about Gladys in a later blog. She was arguably the first woman to exploit her image on postcards and sold hundreds of thousands of them. It was said that nearly every soldier in the first world war trenches had a postcard of her in his tobacco tin.

[There’s a whole subculture of Victorian working women such as pit brow women. There’s also a fascinating book on Victorian Working Women by Michel Hiley which covers pit brow women, women miners, fishergirls, milkwomen, gymnasts etc]

Tags black and white, History, maids, photography, Victorian, working women

photography Social history spooky Victorian

The Book of the Dead

If something was called The Book of the Dead I’d expect to see something scary like this ventriloquist and his dummy. (If you’ve ever seen the film Dead of Night you’ll know why this scares me!)

What I wouldn’t expect is to see a Victorian photo album like this:

Photo albums, with or without themes, were very popular in Victorian time. This Tennyson themed album has lots of cut outs to contain CDVs and cabinet cards. This one’s rather charming I’d say.

I mention this because some time ago I attended a commercially organised “ghost hunt” which took place overnight. It was at the school I’d attended as a teenager so I was already familiar with the place and had not been aware of anything particularly spooky associated with it. As it turned out the whole event was rather silly with the facilitators trying hard to conjure up supernatural events, cold spots and the like. To put it kindly it was utter nonsense.

At one point in the night I found myself in a small room with several other participants trying to make contact with “spirits”. The organiser of this session gave out roles to each of us. She asked for a volunteer to sit with the “book of the dead.” As everyone else was wary I volunteered only to find that the book was actually a Victorian album full of cabinet cards and CDVs. I was delighted of course and could see nothing negative about sitting with this album. My frustration was that because we were operating in very dim lighting I couldn’t see the contents properly. No spirits were contacted or harmed during the seance.

For the most part I find nothing creepy about my interest in old photographs. I see the process of collecting and preserving these photos as a valuable and worthwhile activity, hopefully ensuring that other people can see and appreciate these wonderful social documents. I am perplexed when my partner or other people think there is something creepy about my hobby and refer to it as collecting photographs of dead people. I think those people should be remembered and celebrated not discarded and forgotten.

On the other hand there are some creepy items in my collection though I suspect what I find creepy is not what everyone finds creepy. The photo at the head of this blog for instance is creepy to me as are all films and photos of ventriloquists and their dummies.

Dolls are another thing that can be disturbing. I know I share this with many other people from the feedback I get but sometimes I see a photo featuring a girl and a doll and think it’s creepy whereas others find it delightful. The massed dolls with at girl at the centre is a good example. Creepy or endearing? Only you can decide.

This on the other hand is definitely creepy.

Sometimes the subjects of photographs have a rather haunted look about them. This could be caused by the fact that early photographic techniques required the subjects to be still whilst the exposure was taken but sometimes the subjects look haunted anyway. Taken in Malta this military man and his daughter have a decidedly haunted look.

And sometimes there’s just something wrong or odd about a photograph that makes you wonder what was really going on.

Does the man behind the children look menacing to you?Haunted or cute?

Considering most of these photographs come from the early nineteenth century it is almost certain that the subjects are all now dead but I prefer to think of these old photographs not as items in “The Book of the Dead” but as a celebration of people’s lives.

Tags black and white, History, photography, spooky, Victorian