young girl, c1877 (1899?) courtesy of the Carbon Studio, NY and published by Alfred S. Campbell Art Co Elizabeth, NJ
Toronto. Our society includes folks whose passion is photos. This is a story of a portrait, a very special portrait taken over a century ago using a special process. The image here at left was the cover photo for the Christmas 1988 issue of Photographic Canadiana. The image at left was sharpened in Focus Magic and the curve adjusted to darken the shadows a bit at the expense of highlight detail in the dress.
For this issue of our journal, Ev wrote a photograph-related tale, a tale about a beautiful young lady c1877 and a very unusual large, framed, photograph discovered in an attic. In an effort to determine the printing process used, Ev made 35mm shots of the photograph and finally resorted to inspecting the disassembled original.
Ev begins his story, “Sometime before his untimely death Gerry Ham, well known Canadian collector, placed a framed photograph in my hands and asked, “What is it?”
“I was never able to tell him, because a year elapsed before an answer was forthcoming .
“The original had been delivered to Gerry by llgvars Broks, Vice- President of the color lab BGM in Toronto, who had asked the same question.
“Ilgvars had been in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1986, at a house recently purchase by a relative. The attic was full of boxes, some containing family albums, tintypes, coloured black and white photos and a handwritten note book, all of which had lain unattended for many years.”
The full story and all the illustrations are available today on the PHSC DVD of volumes 1-40 of Photographic Canadiana each in pdf format. As a member, a copy of the DVD will be sent to you via Canada Post. See the ‘MEMBERSHIP’ menu item above or the PayPal buttons to the right to join. Our membership secretary, Lilianne Schneider is available to answer any questions you may have at member@phsc.ca.
