a four lens camera creates a quartet of ‘identical’ portraits on one plate – photo by Bob Lansdale
Toronto. Little school kids can be unintentionally cruel. Any kid who falters or has an obvious medical issue gets an immediate ‘nick name’. For example, children who have corrective glasses are almost automatically called ‘four eyes’!
In the first decades of photography one way to over come copy issues was to use cameras with multi lenses – four or more. The cover shot for issue 21-5 shows an example of a four lens camera. I used that image from a pdf of 21-5, adjusted in Topaz Photo AI, Focus Magic, and Affinity Photo.
Inside the issue the photo is described as follows, “Four lens wet-plate camera owned by Les Jones is typical of the system used to produce duplicate images on one photographic plate. Images are usually unrecognized as stereos.”
An article in the issue (21-5) called ” The Unnoticed Stereo” was written by Bob Lansdale, assisted by Bob Wilson. It begins, “This story started to unfold when Irwin Reichstein of Ottawa submitted a Xerox of two cartes-de-visite by George F. Maitland. Both photos looked identical but one carried the stamp of Maitland ‘s St. Catherines Gallery (1868-1874) while the other indicated his location as Buffalo, New York. It appears Maitland followed the style of other Canadian artists by establishing a studio in the more active market of America’s largest inland port.
“The photos show the grave of William Maitland with a lady (inscribed as “Minnie“) sitting close by. The picture had either allegorical interpretation or a close family connection.
“I was quite surprised when Bob Wilson, free-viewing the rough Xerox declared the pictures to be a stereo pair. I‘m always amazed how some individuals can dislocate their eyeballs in order to merge two separate photos into one stereo image. Mr. Maitland must have photographed the scene with a stereo camera then split the negatives to each of his galleries to provide cards for the collector market.”
Read the fully illustrated article from 21-5 (and the rest of this and other issues) on the free members-only DVD. Joining the PHSC is easy – see the menu item MEMBERSHIP above (cheques, etc) or at right (credit cards and PayPal). Please indicate whether the membership is NEW or RENEWAL. Any questions can be answered by Lilianne. Her email is member@phsc.ca.
