{"id":32154,"date":"2025-08-19T01:03:01","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T05:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=32154"},"modified":"2025-08-16T15:17:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T19:17:57","slug":"collecting-notman-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/collecting-notman-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"collecting Notman photos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hunter (studio recreation) by Notman<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. One popular focus by old photo collectors is to collect photos produced by a major studio or photographer. An example is collecting Notman photographs. Identifying the subject\/cut line for Notman photos is made easier by the studio’s detailed record keeping now held for the most part by the McCord<\/a> museum in Montreal.<\/p>\n

To celebrate our 25th Anniversary, editor Bob Lansdale reproduced an illustrated article titled “William Notman\u2019s \u2026hunting photographs, 1866” which originally appeared in The Archivist<\/i>, No. 118, the magazine of the National Archives of Canada. It is reproduced with the permission of the National Archives of Canada.<\/p>\n

The author, Dr Joan M. Schwartz, of Queens University has been both a member and a speaker at the PHSC. On January 2009 her topic, “Photographic Sleuthing: Archival Stories and Academic Tales<\/a>” provided a huge amount of information about professor Schwartz and her research.<\/p>\n

For the Notman article, she begins, “In 1866, Montreal photographer William\u00a0Notman produced a series of hunting and trapping scenes in a second floor \u201coperating room\u201d\u00a0of his Bleury Street studio. Best known are the\u00a0Cariboo <\/i>[sic] Hunting <\/i>and Moose Hunting\u00a0<\/i>series, parts of which were also published as\u00a0Sports, Pastimes, and Pursuits of Canada\u00a0<\/i>Photographed from Nature<\/i>.<\/p>\n

“<\/span>Hailed as wonderfully realistic and admirably effected, these\u00a0commercially-produced images by Canada\u2019s\u00a0foremost professional photographer won\u00a0awards at international exhibitions and attracted widespread attention. One image titled\u00a0Chance Shot <\/i>showing hunter and guide\u00a0crouched in the snow, rifle at the ready, circulated to an international audience when it was\u00a0published as a mounted photograph on the\u00a0frontispiece of the May 1866 issue of The\u00a0<\/i>Philadelphia Photographe<\/i>r, North America\u2019s\u00a0premier photographic journal.<\/p>\n

“Others, such as\u00a0The Breakfast <\/i>and The Death<\/i>, found their way\u00a0into the personal photograph albums compiled\u00a0by individuals as souvenirs of colonial postings\u00a0or military service.\u00a0Notman\u2019s suggestion that these hunting\u00a0scenes were \u201cphotographed from Nature,\u201d juxtaposed with the great lengths to which he\u00a0went to recreate the outdoors in his studio, has\u00a0tended to focus critical analysis of the Cariboo\u00a0<\/i>Hunting <\/i>and Moose Hunting <\/i>series on the\u00a0question of realism and art.<\/p>\n

“However, an\u00a0archival exploration of historical circumstances, functional origins and documentary\u00a0contexts reveals that these overtly manipulated,\u00a0but naturalistically intended, studio photographs of hunting actively participated in\u00a0shaping notions of place and identity in early\u00a0modern Canada.” …<\/p>\n

Members viewed the entirety of the article in the pdf version of issue 25-2 on the free members-only DVD\/thumb drive. Joining the PHSC is inexpensive and easy. See “Membership” above (cheque) or at right (PayPal or plastic). Drop a line to Lilianne at member@phsc.ca<\/a> if you have a membership question.<\/p>\n

And come to our next 2025 event on October 19th – our famous fall fair. Details\/poster are listed in PHSC News 25-7.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. One popular focus by old photo collectors is to collect photos produced by a major studio or photographer. An example is collecting Notman photographs. Identifying the subject\/cut line for Notman photos is made easier by the studio’s detailed record … 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":[400,4644],"class_list":["post-32154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-fair","tag-old-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32154","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=32154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32158,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32154\/revisions\/32158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}