photo engraving

Posted on April 11, 2019 by Robert

Ad for Photo Engraving 1891

Toronto. Have you ever wondered how photographs ended up in magazines and newspapers, or why it took so long, or why colour was so sparse? The short answer is expense and technology.

The earliest books used actual prints tipped in. Wood cut or steel cut engravings from photographs allowed images like our wet plate man to be in print as an accurate and detailed drawing. Black and white drawings could be placed on a page with text, or  placed on a single sided, full page size plate facing another page. These plates carried colour drawings too on occasion.

In January 1891, The Canadian Architect and Builder magazine carried an illustrated advertisement on page 12 from the Toronto firm of Moore & Alexander for Photo-Engraving, Half-Tone, Cuts. and Reproductions made by their company The Canadian Photo Engraving Bureau, 203 Yonge Street,  Toronto. (Just around the corner from Massey Hall, between  Shuter and Queen.)

Thanks to PHSC member George Dunbar for emailing me this piece of Toronto photographic history.

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analog (film) delights

Posted on April 10, 2019 by Robert

PhotoEd Magazine Spring/Summer 2019

Toronto. PhotoEd magazine has just issued a paper version of its Spring/Summer 2019 issue. This issue uses film as a theme “the resilience of analog” If you want even more of the theme topic, editor/publisher Rita Godlevskis has also produced an online version for free – with a twist. The online version is not the electronic version of the paper magazine, but it is an extension of the magazine with additional editorial content to complement the content in the for-pay paper magazine.

And the colourful ads (including ours) are included in the online version with yet another thrilling twist! If you hover over an ad and see a hand symbol, a click on the ad takes you to their web site – WOW! A big tip of the hat to Rita and her crew at PhotoEd. Thrilling ideas in this era of digital turmoil.

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Light Painting Photography

Posted on April 9, 2019 by Robert

Another use for TV – George Dunbar c1952

Toronto. Light Painting Photography has a long history. The relative insensitivity of glass plates and film readily lent them to this form of art. It was not unusual for professional photographers to “paint” a scene with a series of flash exposures using an open shutter. The result (if done right) was a correctly exposed scene.

Over the years we have all set a shutter open and used a light source to “draw” an image on the exposed film or plate. The image above left can be enlarged with a simple click to see a larger size view of the efforts of a very young George Dunbar to paint his B&W TV set when he lost interest in the wrestling event on screen!

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words, words, words

Posted on April 8, 2019 by Robert

Words, Words, Words

Toronto. I put our first website online over two decades ago on April, 1996. A few years ago, in 2006 or 7, I began an investigation of means to simplify maintenance and updates to our web site so it would be an easier task to transfer responsibilities to a new person. I began looking at various public domain content management systems (CMS) that would allow posts and pages to be written and automatically search them and sort them in chronological order.

While many CMSs were tried out, I settled on WordPress since it had a large following and was easy to use unlike some others that were comprehensible only if you had deep computer knowledge. And in August 2008 I moved us over to WordPress. I created the heading image in Photoshop and I used a WordPress template with a right side bar as a standard. Since WordPress was written in a scripting language, it was also easy to fine tune its look without deep diving into the language. Continue reading →

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first Graflex Journal for 2019

Posted on April 7, 2019 by Robert

Victor Hasselblad – Sweden

Toronto. Ken Metcalf down in North Carolina has issued the latest journal for large camera folk – the 1-19 issue of the Graflex Journal. The lead article is by Davis Strong, a recent member of the PHSC. You may recall last December when Davis joined our show and tell session with his Kalart camera, a short lived competitor of the Graflex.

Lots of great articles in this issue. Just click on the above link and have a read! The masthead photo reminds me of a French expression which paraphrased is “Big man big camera, small man all camera” – definitely the case when the camera is a beautiful Graflex!

Another PHSC member, George Dunbar – you know my friend George of IBM Canada fame – contributed the page of advertisements for the large cameras by Graflex. By the way there is an exhibition on now at York University in Toronto featuring many of George’s photographs.

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April Show in the Big Apple

Posted on April 6, 2019 by Robert

Albert Einstein – 1950

Toronto. Just a brief reminder to join the Daguerreian Society at its New York Photography Fair today, April 6th, 2019. Lots of stuff to see and buy – like this 1950 gelatin-silver print of Albert Einstein.

You can enjoy April in New York City while helping the Daguerreian Society and augmenting your image collection.

 

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walk on the web site

Posted on April 5, 2019 by Robert

an Orb Spider and her web

Toronto. My title of this post is with apologies to musician Lou Reid and Author the late Nelson Algren (Walk on the Wild Side). The world wide web (WWW), conceived by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, was presented  in 1989 using the Hyper-text Markup language (HTML). The web was initially designed to share scientific papers amongst universities over the internet. It went live in CERN in 1990 and outside CERN in 1991.

Five years later, in 1996, we had our first web site live. Most members were puzzled. At our February meeting in 1997, I did a talk called “Take a Walk on the Web Site” to introduce computers, the internet and the web to our members who for the most part left computers to their children or grand children.

Today, the web has been inundated by commerce, porn, social sites (Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, etc.), search engines (Google, Bing, Duck-Duck-Go, etc.), and more. It is rapidly becoming passé  especially to the younger generation who are into texting, twittering, and video gaming. Continue reading →

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Moyra Davey Exhibition at the RIC

Posted on April 4, 2019 by Robert

Moyra Davey Photo

Toronto. A Survey exhibition of New York based and Toronto born photographer Moyra Davey (winner of last year’s Scotiabank Photography Award) runs from May 1st to August 4th at Ryerson’s RIC.

If you miss CONTACT elsewhere, at least take in this exhibition at the downtown Ryerson Image Centre.

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Portraits of a Digital Canada

Posted on April 3, 2019 by Robert

Portraits of a Digital Canada

Toronto. On April 24th, an exhibit opens at York University featuring photographs from the IBM Canada Archives which were donated to the university by IBM Canada, incorporated back in 1917.  The images illustrate the technological and social landscape of our country over the past century.

Included are mostly photographs taken by PHSC member George Dunbar. George was the IBM Canada staff photographer from 1957 to 1989. He spoke to the PHSC and showed some of his photographs at our October 2000 meeting. Details of the coming exhibition are included here.

Come out and see the talent hiding amongst our members!

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Anthropocene by Burtynsky today

Posted on April 2, 2019 by Robert

Anthropocene by Burtynsky

Toronto. Until I saw Manufactured Landscapes at TIFF in September 2006, I had never heard or knew about Ed Burtynsky. His large format photographs were an eye-opener. I later saw one of his huge prints at the AGO during a PHSC evening hosted by photography head and PHSC member Maia Sutnik.

Drop by Indigo’s main store at Bay and Bloor at 7 pm today to hear Heather Reisman in conversation with Ed Burtynsky on his latest coffee table size photography book Anthropocene.

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