another image auction – Icons & Images

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Robert

Lews W. Hine c1930/1
Derrick and Workers on
the Empire State Bldg
Sale 2466, Lot 63

Toronto. This auction is both sooner and closer. Ms Dalle Kaplan sent me an email to say that Swann Auction Galleries down in New York City are hosting their next Icons & Images auction featuring photographs and photo books.

The auction will be held February 15, 2018 at 104 East 25th Street in the Big Apple. The catalogue is now online at the galleries. The prints have fairly high estimated values, but many are works of art!

As usual, the lots can be viewed in person a few days before the auction. I noticed in addition to this beautiful 1930s print by Lew Hine, and other prints by Hine, a few Edward S Curtis prints of Indians. A local restaurant, Barberian’s, known for great steaks and desserts, once had Curtis photos on the walls as decorations!

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an original Leica in the Westlicht auction

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Robert

O series Leica
Westlicht auction

Toronto.  Stephen Musil sent me an email early Thursday morning announcing the 32nd camera auction will be held on Saturday, March 10, 2018 in Vienna. The auction features many special milestone cameras as listed in this press release.

Over the recent past these auctions have been known for the rare cameras offered. Check it out! As noted on the auction web site, a special photograph auction will be held the day before – the 17th Westlicht Photo Auction. This is a fine chance to augment your collection with  truly fine cameras and photos.

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see small, see large

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Robert

Leica ad – September 1951 Popular Photography

Toronto. George Dunbar sent me this September 1951 advertisement from Popular Photography. Leitz made use of the atomic bomb and research to join their microscope and camera products. Both were innovative instruments for their time. The Ortholux microscope was designed in the late 1930s. I have its junior companion, the Dialux which is similar to the Ortholux but smaller with the flat limbs at the back to better accommodate the user’s hands. Mine was made about 1952 or 3 according to its serial number. The first ads I saw for the Dialux was 1954. Later versions are more like the Labolux with the triangular base.

The Leica ad in Popular Photography links the Berek microscope condenser and the IIIf Leica’s 5cm collapsible Summitar lens. Max Berek was the optical designer at Leitz for both the Berek microscope condenser and the Summitar and other early lines of photographic lenses. Berek died in his early 60s in 1949 while still at Leitz. The IIIf came out in 1950.

There is one point in the ad that contradicts history: Leica wasn’t the first 35mm camera, but it was the first commercially successful 35mm camera. The late Jack Naylor of the PHSNE produced a booklet listing the many 35mm cameras that used 35mm cine film, some half frame, some not.

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an eagle eye for your camera …

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Robert

Zeiss Catalogue Ph333e pamphlet
reprinted by Seaboard Printing Ltd
in Bedford Nova Scotia

Toronto. It was July, 1936, when Zeiss Jena produced its Zeiss Objectives catalogue, Ph 333e. In this catalogue, Zeiss lenses were tagged as “The Eagle Eye of your Camera“.  Unlike Leitz, who used the lens name to indicate a lens’s widest aperture, Zeiss used the name to describe the lens design used. So for example, Tessars came in various mounts, speeds, and focal lengths but always with the same internal design.

In this era of orthochromatic black & white films, Zeiss, like many firms, offered a series of coloured glass filters. And of course they were well known for their line of microscopes, eye pieces and objectives.

Zeiss products were sold world wide in Zeiss stores or at various non-Zeiss stores licensed to import their optical instruments.  In Canada, Zeiss products were imported and sold by the chain of Hughes-Owens stores based in Montreal. The chain had stores in Ottawa, Toronto, Quebec City, and Winnipeg.

I bought the reprint from Zeiss collector John Alldredge. in April, 1991 at one of our photographica-fairs.  John was a frequent exhibitor over the years and a member of the PHSC and its executive at the time (handling PHSC promotions).

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Slip, slidin’, away

Posted on January 16, 2018 by Robert

Hughes-Owens Sun Hemmi
Slide Rule

Toronto. Paul Simon wrote this song in 1975 and released it a few years later. It showed up as a Simon and Garfunkel song (I have it on a CD).

The song captures the spirit of film and film cameras that are slowly drifting into history. Our fairs often offer film cameras and accessories which are still snapped up by collectors and student users alike.

Like those fabled films and cameras, slide rules were victims of the digital era – but even earlier. An essential tool for scientists and engineers from the 1600s on, pocket calculators and personal computers in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s eliminated their purpose and utility. Similarly, cameras like the Exakta, Leica and Contax all used the ubiquitous 35mm roll film which quietly disappeared as digital cameras and now smartphones took over, making family records fast and simple.  Continue reading →

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The First Parliament Project

Posted on January 15, 2018 by Robert

Our First Parliament

Toronto. Katelynn Northam sent our President, Lewko (Clint) Hryhorijiw, via our website, an email regarding Toronto’s First Parliament project. Our province was variously known as Upper Canada, Canada West, etc, before the entire country was called the Dominion of Canada after the 1867 confederation.

Katelynn writes, “In November 2017, the City of Toronto initiated a new project to develop the site where the First Parliament buildings stood from 1797-1824 — located at the unassuming corner of Front Street and Parliament Street in downtown Toronto.

“The site carries important historical themes that to this day reveal the fascinating evolution of the City, the Province, and even the Nation. It was here that the legislation and policies emerged that would chart the path of a new nation and affect the lives of countless people.

“The First Parliament project will involve a detailed examination of the site’s history followed by the development of strategies for telling the site’s colourful stories. These strategies will then become the foundation for a Master Plan that will define how the site might be developed and for what purposes.

“Public and stakeholder engagement will be an essential part of the process. To that end, we are inviting everyone who is interested —whether in the site’s history or about how this part of the City is evolving— to sign up for additional information on the project and to receive updates on the upcoming engagement process. “firstparliament.ca” Something old. Something new. The First Parliament Project.”

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where have all the flowers gone – II?

Posted on January 14, 2018 by Robert

Ottawa photo at the end of Global
News TV on Wednesday
courtesy of Aaron Kemery

Toronto. To paraphrase Pete Seeger’s famous song, of the 1950s, where have all the photographers gone? As a kid in the late 1950s and 60s, I can remember this song coming over the radio frequently.

Each milestone in the evolution of photography made the art easier and better for the amateur to the chagrin of the professionals who were once essential to record history and create a realistic ‘likeness’ of the common man.

Each step reduced the cost and effort involved in the capture of a memorable image, simplifying the taking and reducing the cost while the artist used more and more complex and cheaper equipment.

This has reached a point today where TV often uses amateur videos shot on the ubiquitous smartphone – usually in vertical format with two blurred side panels from the video to transform the clip to the 16×9 format of modern day sets. Even news slots wrap up by soliciting ‘your photographs‘ via social media like the beautiful view of Ottawa, above. Where have all the flowers (photographers) gone indeed!

NOTE. I first used Seeger’s song title back on July 12, 2014 for a similar lament – and I still haven’t subscribed to Adobe’s cloud  although some of my CS5 apps are beginning to fail with the latest macOS release (InDesign and Photoshop especially).

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PHSC News 17-07 (January 2018)

Posted on January 13, 2018 by Robert

Minolta Disc-7 using Kodak’s tiny
disc film introduced to us years ago
by Dennis Cannon when it was first
announced by Kodak

Toronto. Our good friend and fellow PHSC member, Sonja Pushchak, has whipped up another tasty morsel for you with her 12 page issue 17-07 of PHSC NEWS, our monthly pdf newsletter. Click on the Minolta Disc-7 icon at left to print or read this issue, meantime here is a summary for you:

Sonja begins with an article and photo from Tina Barney‘s book Photographs: Theatre of Manners. She uses Barney’s 1983 shot of domestic bliss called ‘The Graham Cracker Box‘. This is followed by her announcement of our January 2018 speaker and her topic in a page 2 article called ‘PHSC PRESENTS‘. These are followed by other one page articles like the story of a Montreal restaurant, Au Lutin Qui Bouffe, or IMPERMA-FROST about the great Montreal ice palaces of yesteryear. This segues into THE ICE ADS, a story about hockey card heros.

From there we go to a 1600s painter who used the name Caravaggio and the current issue on photography in art. David Bridge, our intrepid PHSC Lab expert ruminates on the classic Leica vs. Contax argument, using the far more economical Russian knock-offs. David’s wife Louise follows with the popular WEB LINKS (there are actual hot links in our pdf – click on them and see!).

Just click on the above icon to read or print this issue. Note that each column and article in our modern newsletter is a single page long, including photos. For more in-depth articles, like the analysis of the oft viewed and debated D-Day Landing film clips, join the PHSC and get our Photographic Canadiana journal 4 times a year.

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the famous Hasselblad 2-1/4 square SLR

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Robert

Hasselblad 1600F ad
from the May 1951
Pop Photo magazine

Toronto. My thanks to George Dunbar for finding this charming May 1951 ad for the original Hasselblad camera in Popular Photography magazine. Surprisingly the company goes way back to 1841. A photography division was first established in 1887. Popular recognition however, had to wait until after the second war. In 1948 Hasselblad came out with the model 1600F camera and as they say, the rest is history. By the late 1950s the camera and company were known world-wide.

Victor Hasselblad was a bird watcher and designed the 1600F to suit his hobby. However, the design of the camera body and lenses were such that the Hasselblad caught on with the professionals. Once quality and reliability issues were resolved they became a common sight in studios. Even today, while used models sell  at far below the prices demanded in the heady days of film, the cameras, lenses and accessories bring in decent prices. Hasselblad still makes cameras today – high end digital models.

 

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March 3, 1947 photographic milestone

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Robert

March 7 1947 issue of LIFE announces the
picture in a minute
photo process

Toronto. George Dunbar sent me an email the other day showing the first announcement of Edwin Land’s picture in a minute process in the March 3, 1947 issue of LIFE

I recently did a post on the impact this picture in a minute system had on post war photography. The LIFE photograph first announced this astonishing process to the world at large.

It is hard to imagine in this digital age that we would wait days and weeks to see the results of our snap-shots unless we or a neighbour knew how to process and print the negatives.

NOTE: I erroneously credited the ad shown here to the NYT newspaper edition of the same day. Mea culpa…

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