{"id":32063,"date":"2025-08-05T01:03:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T05:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=32063"},"modified":"2025-08-03T01:13:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T05:13:32","slug":"let-there-be-light-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/let-there-be-light-3\/","title":{"rendered":"let there be light …"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

ad for flash – The Professional Photographer 1896<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. As mentioned in recent posts, our late editor Bob Lansdale was able to convince exchange members to submit articles for reprint as we celebrated our 25th anniversary of the journal in 1999.<\/p>\n

John Naslanic, editor of \u00a0the MiPHS’ Photogram, offered this article (and illustrations) on artificial illumination used to allow photographs to be taken under poor light conditions in the days of ultra slow media and modest aperture lenses.<\/p>\n

John began the article, “‘No I might need it.’ That is what MiPHS member Davis B. Hilmer said when I tried to buy one of his powder flashguns. This was in 1972 and Davis was 75 years old then. He was selling off some of his equipment at 65 Canfield St. in Detroit, where he had operated as a commercial photographer for fifty years.<\/p>\n

“His\u00a0client list included a number of Detroit companies,\u00a0including J.L. Hudson. Davis knew that flash powder produced a tremendous amount of light for only a few\u00a0pennies, and could light up a banquet hall, or even a\u00a0large outdoor arena. Flashbulbs cost a heck of a lot\u00a0more and weren\u2019t nearly as effective.<\/p>\n

“For the first 25 years or so, photography depended\u00a0almost entirely on the sun, or the daylight coming in a\u00a0north skylight. No photos could be taken at night or on\u00a0dark wintry days. With new processes, the metal magnesium was produced cheaply, and magnesium ribbon\u00a0could be used to light up interiors, but it burned too\u00a0slowly for portrait work.<\/p>\n

“The magnesium flash-lamp was devised. Pure magnesium powder was held in a reservoir and blown through an alcohol flame, which resulted in a bright flash for about 1\/10th of a second, which could be used to take portraits. One drawback was the billow of white smoke of magnesium oxide that formed and clouded the studio.<\/p>\n

“Another unmentioned\u00a0drawback was that when magnesium oxide reacted\u00a0with water, it becomes magnesium hydroxide \u2013 the\u00a0chemical name for milk of magnesia, a rather aggressive laxative. (A drink of orange juice, vodka and milk\u00a0of magnesia is called a Philips screwdriver.)” …<\/p>\n

Members read this and the other articles in the 25-1 pdf file on the free members-only DVD\/memory stick. The disk\/stick contains pdf versions of the first 40 volumes of our journal. See MEMBERSHIP above or at right to join. \u00a0Email any questions to Lilianne at member@phsc.ca. Collectors may find old flash photos, or powders, or flash apparatus at our 2025 events. Up next is our fall fair on October 19th, 2025 at Trident Hall on Evans near Islington. See PHSC News 25-7. A poster with details will be pinned to this site a few weeks before the fair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. As mentioned in recent posts, our late editor Bob Lansdale was able to convince exchange members to submit articles for reprint as we celebrated our 25th anniversary of the journal in 1999. John Naslanic, editor of \u00a0the MiPHS’ Photogram, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1944],"tags":[500,2017,601,755,544],"class_list":["post-32063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-accessories","tag-article","tag-fall-fair","tag-flash","tag-miphs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32063"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32067,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32063\/revisions\/32067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}