PHSC presentation, January 18, 2023 – History of the Bicycle

Posted on January 8, 2023 by Robert

Lorne Shields on Bicycle History in photographs – photograph by the late Robert Lansdale

Toronto.Our January 18, 2023 presentation on ZOOM features member Lorne Shields on the History of the Bicycle – 1st 100 years, We welcome this experienced speaker and expert on bicycle history.

Lorne describes his talk as, “100 YEARS OF CYCLING’S HISTORY FROM 1820 TO 1920 AS CAPTURED THROUGH THE LENS OF THE CAMERA.

“SET OUT IN A CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER WHICH LED UP TO TODAY’S MODERN BICYCLE AS WE KNOW IT.

“SELECTED FROM HIS MOST RARE. HISTORIC, INTERESTING, IMPORTANT AND GRAPHICALLY APPEALING IMAGES.”

If you have’t heard Lorne before, you are in for a pleasant surprise. Here is a bit of background info.:”Lorne Shields, of Thornhill Ontario has been an avid collector and researcher of early bicycling history for some 55 years.  

“Some of his collection has been displayed at such organizations as the Smithsonian Institution, the Royal Ontario Museum, Ingenium (Canada’s Science & Technology Museum), Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (museum) in St. Etienne, France.  His collection includes virtually every facet of early cycling photographica, ephemera and memorabilia as well as the cycles themselves.  

“Lorne’s specialty and passion is historic cycling photography.  He has given talks on early cycling photographica at various museums, historical societies, universities and symposia in Europe and North America.  A sampling of these venues include The Photographic Historical Society (America) at George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, the Photographic Historical Society of Canada on multiple occasions, the Michigan Photographic Society, the Bicycle Museum of America, Victoria College at the University of Toronto, The Ephemera Society of American in Greenwich Connecticut, Velorama at Nijmegen in The Netherlands and at Guildhall in the City of London, England. 

“His presentations are always crafted to the intended audience. This presentation will cover the history & development of the bicycle from 1820 to 1920. The images have been selected from the most historic, rarest, interesting, important and graphically appealing photographs in his collection.”

If you have any questions, please contact our programme director, Celio Barreto at program@phsc.ca.Reserve your space today at Eventbrite for this ONLINE presentation!.  Note: use the links in the text above, not in the jpeg of the poster (no live links in this jpeg).

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Gary is at it again …

Posted on January 7, 2023 by Robert

Toronto. Our good friend, Gary Perry, sent a note the other day.

In the note Gary says, “Happy New Year! We are happy to announce our next Camerama Camera Show!

“Camerama Camera Show
“Sunday February 05th 2023
“Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre
6 Garamond Ct. Toronto  M3C 1Z5
Show Hours: 10am – 3pm
Entrance at the south side of the building.

“Vendor tables are available. Contact me for information.

“Regards, Gary Perry
Camerama Camera Show
905-550-7477”

CAMERAMA SHOW February 5, 2023

Note: See the post for October 29,2020 to see the source of the title.

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number 33 by ZOOM

Posted on January 6, 2023 by Robert

Toronto. We had another  small meeting. Celio was tied up with family matters, Wayne was unavailable, etc.  Clint masterfully organized our 33rd executive meeting via ZOOM  on Wednesday evening, January 4th, 2023. (Felix (not shown), is our member attending the O3C meetings).

a modest group of executive members led by president Clint

Please note again that our Newsletter needs an editor. Meantime, Journal co-editor, David Bridge will send out a brief notice this month. If you would like a personal copy but haven’t joined up as yet, just drop me a note at news@phsc.ca.

As I mentioned, our membership secretary was unavailable but previously summarized our membership numbers as little changed since the October, 2022 report.

The monthly meeting this month (January) will be a talk by member Lorne Shields instead of Cassie Stiles. We will hear Ms Stiles at a later date. Lorne’s talk will be advertised here and on MaiChimp in a few days.

Our latest auction was held on December 17th. It was well received – an SRO event with all 80 chairs filled with enthusiastic bidders. The success of the auction has overwhelmed us. That and the holiday season has somewhat delayed cheques.

Our latest journal was out as a pdf file shortly before year end and the next issue (due this quarter) is underway using the newest version of Affinity Publisher.

Like I have said many times, “Have a great winter and let’s hope the seventh wave of COVID-19 and its restrictions are very modest at best!”.

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discovering photo history

Posted on January 5, 2023 by Robert

cover shot of a 1909 magazine devoted to photography.

Toronto. Our photo historian, George Dunbar, found another interesting site in his pursuit of photographic history through old magazine articles and advertisements. The site includes many issues of an early 1900s magazine called “Photographic Topics”.

George writes, “Some great, old photo magazines available here [on the HathiTrust Digital Library].”

HathiTrust describes itself as,”Founded in 2008, HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items. HathiTrust offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. copyright law, computational access to the entire corpus for scholarly research, and other emerging services based on the combined collection.

“HathiTrust members steward the collection — the largest set of digitized books managed by academic and research libraries — under the aims of scholarly, not corporate, interests.”

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the dangers of random sparks

Posted on January 4, 2023 by Robert

March 1949 article on static buildup from hair

Toronto. As a youth, I once took a winter course and stayed at the King Edward in downtown Toronto. My leather soles scraped along the corridor carpets building up a spectacular static discharge when I came close to metal – like the room’s door knob. I soon learned to hold a metal key and let it discharge the static buildup harmlessly.

Years later we had a guest speaker who reminisced about his best photos, noting how one was memorable also because the flash bulb he went to insert in the holder suddenly went off in his hand causing a serious burn. Like any good photographer, he soldiered on and got his photograph.

My good friend and fellow PHSC member, George Dunbar, came across an article in the March, 1949 issue of Popular Mechanics, which prompted this post.

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everything old …

Posted on January 3, 2023 by Robert

remember the Pentax K1000? – Image is courtesy of Zigmar Stein/Shutterstock.com

Toronto. …is new again.  We owe a big thanks to treasurer John Morden for suggesting this article on a planned renaissance of Pentax film cameras by Ricoh.

Many of us can remember the Pentax line (Ricoh uses the Pentax name on a line of digital cameras) and the photographs taken with Pentax film cameras over the years.

We were thrilled with the advent of digital technology and its progression to speed, clarity, and ubiquity. Some of us did not see the impact the digital era would have on existing technologies like film and film cameras.

It is exciting for those who favour the “je ne  sais quoi” of film prints and doggedly continue to use the film cameras and films (our events often have film cameras and films on hand). Some use a hybrid approach – shoot with film then scan the processed negatives to make digital corrections and printing.

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brave new camera

Posted on January 2, 2023 by Robert

ad in an American trade journal for the original Leica camera

Toronto. In the 1920s after losing the great war (WW1), Germany suffered a massive bout of inflation and depression. The Ernst Leitz optical house in Wetzlar had mainly made microscopes, objectives, eye pieces, accessories, and the occasional other optical item – like a field camera and rangefinders.

The decision forced on the tiny family business by the crushing inflation of the 1920s was whether to lay off staff or expand its product line. Ernst Leitz himself decided to manufacture Oskar Barnack‘s camera to keep his staff occupied. The tiny camera was christened the “Leica” or LEItz CAmera.

Marketing began in the mid 1920s. The original Leica had a fixed 5cm lens, miniature focal plane shutter, viewfinder,  and a separate rangefinder. The camera was all metal with a sturdy gutta percha coating on the body. It used movie film to make the 24mm x 36mm (1″ x 1.5″) negatives and introduced the idea of a small negative enlarged to make a big print.

A few years later, the entire world crashed into a nearly decade long deep depression. By the mid 1930s, the minicam craze was a world-wide phenomenon and the Leica proved to be very successful for Leitz (minicams caught the mighty Zeiss-Ikon group by surprise and seeing the success of the Leica, it reacted with the Contax line of cameras and lenses).

Note. The title of this post is a riff on Aldous Huxley‘s 1932 book titled, “Brave New World“.

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the flying Dutchman

Posted on January 1, 2023 by Robert

Toronto. We at the PHSC wish you one and all peace, prosperity, and good health in the coming year of 2023. We associate New Year’s with a party. This one took place over 60 years ago! Back then Bill was the life of the party – this photo was taken indoors with an Exakta VX IIa and a flash.

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spiking it

Posted on December 31, 2022 by Robert

LAC print of dignitaries adding ‘the last spike’ in 1885 in BC

Toronto. When I was in high school , I enjoyed playing volleyball and (briefly) announcing.  It is fitting that on the last year of the day we feature an historical event – placing ‘the last spike’ on the CPR line in BC.

We are a very large country geographically, and rather small population-wise. One concession demanded by BC was to be linked by rail to the east within Canada before they agreed to join the Dominion.   Pierre Berton wrote about the 5 years spent building the CPR line west to BC in his book. “The Last Spike“.

The event was guided by an American steeped in railroads – Willian van Horne.Van Horne and family moved to Montreal to guide this massive undertaking by the CPR. Van Horne lived the rest of his life in Montreal where a street was named ‘Van Horne’ in his honour.

The photographs used are courtesy of the LAC and we thank our good friend and fellow photo history enthusiast, George Dunbar for bring them to our attention.

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all sizes great and small

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Robert

the base for the post title

Toronto. From the beginning of analogue (a sensitive coating and emulsion) most cameras were the size of their negative (or in some cases the positive) as prints (if needed) were contact printed. Glass Plate and film sizes varied to match the camera.

The media was generally  from 16″ x 20″ down. In one case a size of 18″ x 22″ is mentioned. For minicams, the film fell to 2 1/4″ or even 1″ (35mm). When subminiature cameras were introduced the size dropped even further. Prints were also affected. Some tiny positives were inserted into Stanhope jewellery in the 1800s and during WW2, a full page was shrunk to the size of a period on a page making critical information appear quite innoculous.

The odd enlarger emerged in the 19th century allowing photographs taken wth smaller cameras to be enlarged. With the advent of the minicam revolution in the 20th century, enlargers became mandatory so the small negatives could be printed larger and easily viewed.

When digital technology arrived, the ‘film’ was replaced by a sensor and printing was done by computer making the old fashioned enlarger a thing of the past. As time passed sensors increased in resolution, size, and sensitivity while noise continued to decrease.

Note. The post title is a riff on a book by James Herriot, “All Creatures Great and Small“. Years ago, I bought a collection of Herriot’s books which were a charming read. The stories were about rural veterinary practice in England around and before WW2. The author was actually a vet trained in his native Glasgow and practicing in the Yorkshire dales.

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