Cover shot of the 1901 magazine “Photo-Era”
Toronto. Photography was an exciting avocation just over a century ago. One of the magazines of the time was called Photo-Era (The American Journal of Photography). This illustrated monthly covered the photographic scene in America. This example was first published some two decades after technology shifted to America and its vast resources like the George Eastman company with its roll films, Kodaks, and Brownies. You can read excerpts from volumes 7-8 here.
We don’t always realize how wonderful things are today with high sensitivity, full colour, auto everything, world wide transmission in seconds, etc. on almost every smart phone. Magazine articles like those in Photo-Era take one back to the days when photography was a hard learned skill and art form for those clever enough to adopt a new technology. With Kodaks, Brownies, and roll film, we began to see the rapid growth of amateur photographers and ‘snap-shooters’.
We owe this find to our good friend, George Dunbar, and his unceasing research into the history of our favourite topic.
