A little box of magic

Last weekend I found myself at a vintage fair in Perth's Salutation Hotel.  Horrendous Christmas music aside there was a wonderful array of stalls with all sorts of interesting things for sale.  A couple of nice vintage cameras caught my eye but lightness of wallet kept them where they were.  What I couldn't pass up however was a box of old magic lantern slides.

The magic lantern was an early type of image projector which in its simplest form consisted of a glass slide positioned between a candle and a lens.  The lantern would project a dim and fuzzy image on to a wall or sheet.  These devices built on thousands of years of experiments with projected images and paved the way for the development of photography and cinema many years later.

The Laterna Magica by Paul Sandby, 1760

As far as can be told, one of the first magic lantern demonstrations in the U.K. was witnessed on Sunday 19th August 1666 by diarist Samuel Pepys who wrote:

"Up and to my chamber, and there began to draw out fair and methodically my accounts of Tangier, in order to shew them to the Lords. But by and by comes by agreement Mr. Reeves, and after him Mr. Spong, and all day with them, both before and after dinner, till ten o’clock at night, upon opticke enquiries, he bringing me a frame he closes on, to see how the rays of light do cut one another, and in a darke room with smoake, which is very pretty. He did also bring a lanthorne with pictures in glasse, to make strange things appear on a wall, very pretty."

Three days later Pepys bought one of his own.

By the late 18th century elaborate horror shows were being staged, with devils, ghosts and wizards projected through a cloud of smoke by enterprising showmen. Come the following century small, cheap lanterns were available and the home entertainment system was born.

The slides I bought in Perth came in a sturdy wooden box with a leather strap and a brass securing arm at either end.  They seem to have been taken from at least two, possibly three, different sets.  The first set depicts a variety of scenes mainly of a gentleman riding very fast on horseback, the second some state occasion with soldiers in uniform and lavish carriages and another seemingly random slide of what appears to be a man pouring soup over his trousers.

These sets were often accompanied with some sort of reading, music, audience participation or a combination of all three.  Booklets were published with readings and direction for the showman as to which slide to project at which time.  I'd love to have an explanation of what's going on in these images, especially as several of the sets are incomplete, though I suspect in the case of the horse-riding gentleman this may be nothing more than a lengthy chase sequence.  The French Connection of its day perhaps.

The slides are all numbered, some with original figures painted on the glass, others with small stickers.  I have no idea how to go about dating them, though even in my ignorance there remains a surprising amount of enjoyment to be had from the single square slide of a dapper gent in polite company chucking his dinner over his lap.

Ye Olde Photoshoppe

Last year I picked up an interesting book snappily titled 'The Art of Retouching Negatives and Finishing and Colouring Photographs' by Robert Johnson.  This copy is a ninth edition, revised and brought up to date by T.S. Bruce and Alfred Braithwaite and dated 1918.

I always use this book when I'm teaching advertising analysis to our social science students.  Many are familiar with Photoshop and the problems with heavily manipulated advertising images though they are often surprised to learn that photographic manipulation is almost as old as photography itself.

Johnson's book gives a fascinating insight into the techniques that photographers were using nearly 100 years ago to do everything from alter the shape of a woman's neck to the removal of the veins in a sitter's hands.  Going into detail about some of the latest advances in retouching Johnson writes:

"The urgent need of something easier to use than the knife, and safer in the hands of the amateur, arose, and so "Negafake" Erasing Pencils were invented by Mr. J.W. D'Anter, a well-known and long-experienced London photographer, and have proved themselves a veritable boon to all retouchers, a great number of the leading trade and professional houses employing them extensively, and expressing the utmost satisfaction with the results."

There are several plates illustrating the techniques and possibilities of using various knives, tools and inks on mainly portrait shots showing both before and after stages.  One of the big challenges facing photographers in the early 20th century was how to represent colour accurately.  That might seem like a strange statement, given that they were shooting exclusively in black and white, but the photographer had to consider how to treat, for example, red hair which photographed as black or fair hair which came out much darker than the customer might desire.  The owner of Johnson's handy guide had only to turn to the back from where 'Buildup', 'Buildub Black' and a 'Dixon 400' pencil could be ordered from The Vanguard "N" Co. of Maidenhead, England.  And if you didn't know how to use them?  No problem, just order some postal lessons from T.S. Bruce of Hampstead, London.  I wonder what T.S. Bruce would've made of YouTube....

Wardrobe Convos with the 35B

Occasionally I do some photography for Kim and Helen over at Wardrobe Conversations, usually shooting on either my Canon 600D or Helen's Panasonic G5.  So it was a nice change to try shooting some material on the Rollei 35B.  These shots weren't for use on their site, just for my own amusement.  Check out this post if you'd like to see the G5 versions.

Helen and I went for a day out in Dundee, taking a snoop round the grounds of DJCAD and also a visit to the world's smallest street market.  We managed to get some nice shots using cracked concrete and graffiti as backgrounds which always works well for fashion shoots.  The street market, organised by Richard Cook, took place on the site of one of Dundee's slums and now home to Richard's vintage spectacle shop.