flying cameras

Posted on March 13, 2024 by Robert

St Joseph’s Oratory July 1972

Toronto. This photo of a Montreal landmark, St Joseph’s Oratory on Queen Mary Road, was taken by an Exakta and 135mm Steinheil lens on Kodachrome from a CJAD news helicopter.

Aerial photos have been taken since the late 1850s when Nadar took photographs from a balloon. Since then many photographers have taken on this delicate branch of the art. Such photography was prominent in major wars as the images – sometimes in stereo – mapped the progress of the war and helped plan future strategies.

We were treated to an overview of the more modern use of aerial  photography by the late George Hunter who recounted his experiences in our January, 2003 Toronto meeting. He and his camera were later photographed by Bob Lansdale using the then relatively new digital technology.

Image collectors can browse their collections and see if any of the images were taken in the air. All collectors can visit our spring events to pick up images and gear to augment collections and/or user gear – film or digital.  Events are listed to the right of this website and will be posted closer to the actual dates.

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flight of fancy

Posted on March 12, 2024 by Robert

Jan 1924 helicopter in France sets record for 8+ minutes airborne

Toronto.  The cut line for the photograph at left says, ” Raúl Pescara’s 16-bladed helicopter leaves the ground at Issy les Moulineaux, France, to attempt the world endurance record in January 1924. Pescara’s flight set a new record, staying airborne for eight minutes, 13.8 seconds.”

The photograph demonstrates once again how photography can bring history to life. Who knew that a century ago eight minutes and change in the air in a helicopter was a life time. Today we take for granted all the helicopters wandering around in the air for umpteen hours at a time.

This image and the link to the Atlantic magazine’s photo site for 1924 is courtesy of my good friend and fellow PHSC member, George Dunbar. While the photos seem to be mostly American and French, they show how great photography is as a means to augment written history. Image collectors can see from this link that photographs covered more than portraits and landscapes.

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Executive Meeting No 45 via ZOOM

Posted on March 11, 2024 by Robert

PHSC President Clint Hryhorijiw

Toronto. March is heading into hot weather – we held our 45th ZOOM executive meeting last Wednesday of which this a brief recap.

The latest PHSC newsletter by editor Katrin Faridani is due out in March. For any viewer wishing a  personal copy, drop me an email at news@phsc.ca and I will add you to the MailChimp list.

Membership Secretary Lilianne Schneider continues to handle the membership records. Contact her via info@phsc.ca if you have any questions.

We need volunteers at our meetings and events. Send us your name here: info@phsc.ca. And I will see our president is informed.

Our journal is available in pdf format after notification from MailChimp to your inbox. If  you have UNSUBSCRIBED  to MailChimp, you will not receive journals or other info. Nor can we reinstate that specific email address for you  –  MailChimp blocks renewal by me of such addresses (a form, not yet on our site, could allow you to reactivate it). Also, if you change email addresses, please tell us as MailChimp flags such old addresses as CLEANED and cannot add your new address automatically.

*By the way, note that as of 2022, our membership year ends December 31st.* Also as of 2024, memberships are $35/$100 1 yr/3 yr Canadian regardless of the member location (one of the perks of pdf format for our journal).

The March Toronto meeting will be  a special talk from Japan by Dutch journalist and photographer Kjeld Duits  via ZOOM on the 20th.  We will notify those on our MailChimp list how to join the event. If you are not yet on MailChimp, please contact Clint or Celio via info@phsc.ca for connection details. We will forward the message. Further details about this event will be in a post on this site closer to the 20th.

Co-editor David Bridge and partner Louise Freyburger are currently writing issue 49-4 of Photographic Canadiana.  The issue is scheduled for release around late March, 2024. PS: Please renew or join now if you haven’t already. See the MEMBERSHIP menu above and/or our PayPal button at right.

Remember, we notify members via MailChimp as each new journal issue is released. If you are a member but HAVE NOT seen the notification since you registered/renewed, please email me at info@phsc.ca. The most recent journal (49-3) was issued the end of last year.

And remember – next week is supposed to be warm …

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ZOOMing into the future

Posted on March 10, 2024 by Robert

effect of focal plane shutter on sports car – 1912 Grand Prix France by Lartigue

Toronto. When COVID hit, the PHSC resorted to online meetings, finally settling on ZOOM for executive meetings.

At the time, ZOOM did not offer a means to control visitors nor did it offer any statistics. After investigation for programme use, our Programme Director recommended EventBrite as a front end to ZOOM for presentations online.

Both ZOOM and EventBrite continued to evolve their software and business plans. We discovered this past February that we could no longer edit our account in EventBrite to set a specific meeting date. As a workaround, we used our MailChimp list and ZOOM (plus notifying an added select few people). This approach will be repeated for our speaker, Mr Kjeld Duits who is a Dutch journalist and photographer living in Japan. He will speak on Mar 20th about photography in Japan.

Meeting details will be sent to all current addresses on our MailChimp list (WARNING – unsubscribed or cleaned addresses will NOT get any notice by MailChimp). Meantime our Programme Director is investigating the newer ZOOM options, which appear to offer features we once obtained via EventBrite, and simplify hybrid meetings.

The photograph at left is a well known photo taken by M Jaques-Henri Lartigue in 1912 at a race in France. I first saw it in the Time-Life series on Photography.  While we can’t promise you will find such epic photos in our coming events, you will see many collectibles and user gear. A post will offer more information as the date approaches.

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made in Japan

Posted on March 9, 2024 by Robert

A slide from Celio’s Nov 20, 2019 talk on photography in Japan

Toronto. Back in November, 2019 Celio Barreto spoke on Japanese photography and its history in Japan. Today as our Program Director, Celio has arranged for Kjeld Duits, a Japan based Dutch journalist and Japanese historian to speak to us this month.

Mr Duits is well known for his extensive knowledge of photographic history in Japan. We welcome his coming talk via ZOOM to all who are on our MailChimp list ( and a few more)

 

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down the line

Posted on March 8, 2024 by Robert

a CNR yard engine circa mid 20th century (During or just after WW2)

Toronto. One specialty by photographers is photographing trains, lines and train stations. In our January 2016 meeting speaker Ralph Beaumont and his ‘sidekick’ Rod Clarke presented the story of  “Heckman’s Canadian Pacific“.

For many decades trains were the prestigious way to travel – until private automobiles and commercial aircraft took over. Even today, Canada has a nostalgic system call VIA rail running from Montreal to Vancouver over a mix of old CPR and CNR railway lines. When I travelled on it to Vancouver over two decades ago, the leisurely wealthy still owned private railcars that could be hooked to the train. On the way home, a tardy private car in Edmonton caused a long delay the train never overcame. The VIA train was hit by a farmer’s truck in rural Saskatchewan early in the morning – fortunately with no human casualties.

The railways are special to Canada. The Dominion was formed in 1867 to fend off any problems generated by the American Civil war. To attract British Columbia to the fold, the young country promised to join the colony to the rest of the dominion with an all Canadian line called the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) – ironically completed and run by a great American railroader named  W C Van Horne who moved to Montreal where he lived and died.

A few decades later, the federal government formed a second country wide line called the Canadian National Railway (CNR) formed with many of the small regional railways.  Ironically two of the largest railways in North America today are the CPR and CNR – neither government owned!

Photo collectors may already have ‘train’ photos in their collection. Photography collectors of all stripes need to attend our spring events to find more items for their collections (or user gear) and to meet old friends. Check the right hand sidebar for dates and places. Posts will be made closer to the events.

 

 

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getting it there

Posted on March 7, 2024 by Robert

A Misquito bomber c WW2 and the pilot, Ms Violet Milstead.

Toronto. I received further material on Women in the Air late on the 5th. George Dunbar sent me this photo and link. It ties in nicely with an American story of similar female pilots ferrying aircraft on the West coast of the States.

Women joined our air services in the second world war but we civilians seldom heard of them. Their valuable contribution is noted in Canada’s History magazine for April, 2024 with the article, “Women and the War in the Air” written by Joel Ralph  and posted February 29, 2024.

The photograph above, left is captioned “Canadian pilot Violet Milstead stands in front of a Mosquito bomber. Milstead and other women pilots delivered bombers from factories to Bomber Command stations.” The image is courtesy of  the “BOMBER COMMAND MUSEUM OF CANADA”.

And once again we show the value of photography and photographers for making history interesting to all. It is worth noting that many of our members, including past president, the late Larry Boccioletti, worked for De Havilland in the facilities where the Mosquito bombers were built.

While we cannot promise you will find such exciting war photos at our events this spring, Come on out anyway this May to greet old friends and add to your collection or user gear! Just a hint – we will be adding a post as each event date  comes closer. Meantime, the basics are shown in the right hand sidebar of this site under PHSC EVENTS.

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an interesting archive to our east.

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Robert

Library building in Whitby, Ontario but with Carnegie funds0

Toronto. The photo you see is from the Whitney Archive courtesy of the Pickering Library. You can see  many options here. The grid on the photos may be a newspaper halftone or a means to ‘protect’ these images.

Associated with this photo is the note, “Constructed [in Whitby] with funds supplied by American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, this building served as a library from 1914 to 1973. It was designated as an historic building in 1985.”

Carnegie funded libraries in many communities in North America. Our local library was a typical example. To me, it was one of the finest buildings in my community, about an hour from Toronto. I spent many happy hours there browsing the stacks.

Image collectors and photo historians can delve into the archives and formulate more details about their community or collection. Our thanks here goes to my good friend George Dunbar for researching this amazing online facility in nearby Pickering.

 

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flight history

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Robert

Book on Women and Flight History in Canada

Toronto. I have made earlier posts about how history has been helped by photography. Recently I was reminded of this fact by a note from my good friend George Dunbar. George writes, “Some interesting book titles listed here for those interested in both flight and exceptional women”.

The ‘here’ in George’s comments is the Niagara Falls Public Library‘s catalogue. The link George offers is this catalogue link to a book called “Canadian Women in the Sky” by Ms Elizabeth Gillan Muir.

The book is also available for purchase in paper back at Indigo Books. The book consists of 175 pages of short stories. There is even an organization (Achieve Anything) promoting women to embrace industries and disciplines out side their scope in history.

As to Muir’s book, with or without photos included, photography would certainly have improved the historical aspect by showing the people, machines, and times covered. Have a look!

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calling all collectors

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Robert

a Kodak tank ready for auction this May 5th.

Toronto.  Who would have thought it? This is our 50th year. In the latter part of the 20th century clubs like ours proliferated. Some even became exchange members (we swapped journals rather than paid membership).

Once the digital era hit, interest in vintage cameras and photos waned. Only a small number of societies survived, including the PHSC.

Volume 50 of our journal will be published this year (only as a pdf file). And the core group of collectors -camera and image, film and digital –  look forward to our events with obvious enthusiasm. This spring our auction will take place in early May.

The image at left shows one lot. Featured will be cameras, lenses, books, accessories, darkroom goodies and more for both film and digital folk. As the auction date comes closer we will be adding special posts (hint: check the right hand sidebar of this site). We hope once again to add a slide show of all the lots in the auction (almost 100 lots have already been photographed and adjusted ready for the slide show).

Be sure to drop in and renew old friendships while checking out the goodies – lots for all to see. And you might find just the thing to add to your collection (or user gear).

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