Category Archives: history

beating the bus

Posted on October 15, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. Even before the announcement of photography experimenters struggled to get drawings and later photos to distant locations without resorting to buses or other vehicles of land or sea based locomotion. Telegraph offered a way to send images if they … Continue reading →

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eulogy for simplicity

Posted on October 14, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. Kodak made its money in the days of film by selling, ummm, film. And to do that, Kodak sold inexpensive cameras – film burners. But with seemingly a big difference to its competitors – they listened to their customers. … Continue reading →

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just a girl and her camera

Posted on October 12, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. At a ZOOM meeting the other day, Celio, noted the most popular posts to our Instagram site were photos of photographers with their cameras. Celio collaborated with our newest PHSC exec recruit, Alexandra, to find a way to celebrate … Continue reading →

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stereopticon

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. Over the years people have christened their weird and wonderful optical marvels with odd names like “stereopticon” for a mechanical projector of 3D and 2D images. When I looked up the definition of the name in a dictionary, it … Continue reading →

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that’s how the light gets in – II

Posted on October 8, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. When the Daguerreotype process was announced in January 1839, it was so slow that only still life and landscape views could be recorded. The news of the process speed resulted in a two direction thrust: chemically, to enhance the … Continue reading →

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that’s how the light gets in

Posted on October 7, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. Did you ever wonder how Chevalier managed to make the first camera for Daguerre complete with a lens before 1839 ? The lens had been designed a quarter century earlier c1812 by the  Englishman Wollaston as a landscape lens … Continue reading →

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sand in the works

Posted on October 6, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. The digital revolution is driven by sand. Silicon is nothing more than reconstituted sand, after all. We in photography are all too aware of the severe impact digital has had on our industry. Film, chemicals, darkrooms, traditional cameras, lighting … Continue reading →

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who ya gonna call – II?

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. Who ya gonna call when you want people in middle class America to know about your fresh egg and do some digging? LIFE magazine, that’s who! In the March 8, 1969 issue, a full page ad on page 19 … Continue reading →

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something to sit upon

Posted on October 4, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. Well, what do you know? Here is another special members-only supplement (vol 1-4). This one is on posing chairs of all things. In a more leisurely era, a studio portrait took a few seconds of absolute stillness to capture. … Continue reading →

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don’t let the light get in

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. Cameras are all the same in one sense whether they cost pennies or thousands of dollars: they are a light tight box separating a light sensitive medium from a lens so that any object at infinity is in focus … Continue reading →

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