What a picture, what a photograph”…
What-ho, happy snappers!
Have any of you been watching that admirable BBC programme, “Britain's First Photo Album” presented by the handsomely jowled John Sergeant? What a man! (Not sure about the hat, though, John…)
The series recreates some of the pictures taken by Francis Frith, the splendid Victorian entrepreneur photographer…Marvellous fare!
I love an old photograph, don’t you? Especially the brown and crinkly ones.
You’ll not be surprised to learn that your libraries have a fine collection of Frithery…and books on photography in general…and one of my particular favourites is the imaginatively titled “Looking at old photographs”. If you’ve an old family snapshot, and want to know the date of a particular wing collar, a fox fur stole, a tightly buttoned bodice and a finely waxed moustache (although not on the same individual, one trusts) then this is the book for you.
And, if you seek more local photographs with a historical theme, then our wondrous Local Studies and Archives Centre is the place to go. You’ll be amazed!
And as for Mr Frith himself?...My Research Team have, as you have no doubt come to expect, been diligent in their unstinting efforts to unearth you a few nuggets of information:
• Francis Frith (1822 – 1898), the son of a Derbyshire Quaker, whose childhood “combined firm morality with the love of fresh air” and who went on to amass a fortune in the printing trade…
• Fascinated by the new science of photography, Frith travelled to the Middle East (where he slept in caves and fended off wild dogs) and found fame as an intrepid explorer...
• Returning home to England, Frith turned his curious eye (and eye for business) to travel and photography, and he recorded the state of the nation on film...
• For the last twenty years of his life, he “fell back upon books and art, nature, love, and poetry”, which sound eminently sensible to me!...
John Sergeant, on the other hand, appeared on Strictly Come Dancing…
(And, is it me, or does he bear an uncanny resemblance to Jo Brand?)…
On which tantalising note, I leave you, dear readers….
Smile...Say cheese!
TTFN
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