Category Archives: history

catch the wave

Toronto. As mentioned many posts back, stereo has a surge in popularity about once every half century as new technology improves the images. In the 1950s another surge hit with toys, cameras, books, articles, movies, slides, colour, viewers, and projectors … Continue reading

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remember Stanley?

Toronto. As a kid in grade school, I remember a photo in my geography book. It was taken in Stanley Park, BC and showed a huge fir tree trunk with an early automobile and people nestled inside at the bottom. … Continue reading

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Vieux Montreal

Toronto. George Dunbar writes, “Plenty of wonderful archived images for viewing and sale at this site: https://www.shorpy.com/. George used the photo at left of Jacques Cartier Square c1900 in Old Montreal as an example of the interesting and historic photos available … Continue reading

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king of the heap

Toronto. A game we played as kids was “King of the Castle”. The young kids struggled to get on the top of the pile – the others were all  “dirty rascals”. The idea of the game applied to many industries, … Continue reading

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sweet!

Toronto. The January 1956 ad for Graflex in Popular Mechanics magazine was typical of the photography ads of the time. The ad touted Graflex products as ideal for colour images. Not mentioned was that colour transparencies and electronic flash were … Continue reading

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the man speaks for himself

Toronto. Karsh emigrated to Ottawa where he became a famous Canadian photographer. He was interviewed by the ICP many times and you can hear the recordings of his interviews in this article posted on December 23, 2018 by Christopher George. … Continue reading

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digging in

Toronto. Photo historians are blessed with a rich source of photographic history – a community archive of photographs from long ago local studios. The names and often addresses paint a picture of the community as it grew. Verification can often … Continue reading

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entertainment in the late 1800s

Toronto. Did you ever wonder how people amused themselves before movies, radio, television, etc? Books, newspapers, and stereo cards? Well thanks to the Megalethoscope, patented in 1862 by Swiss born Carlo Ponti, people could also be entertained (and educated) by … Continue reading

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tribute to a couple of Ws

Toronto. Keystone is a familiar name to members of the PHSC. As publishers of stereo view cards and sets (at one time), their wares are seen at many PHSC fairs. At left is a shot of one of the Keystone … Continue reading

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an innovator called Karl

Toronto. You have likely used his designs or innovations, especially if you took photographs last century with smaller roll film cameras (127 and 35mm) or used an SLR. A young Dutchman, Johan Steenbergen, moved to Dresden in 1912 where he … Continue reading

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