Wanted photos, drawings and designs of late 1800s photo studios

[John Powers]

Looking for photos, drawings and designs of late 1800s photo studios. Jim Fry the owner of the Ohio Farm Museum, Richfield, OH USA has allowed several of us to prowl and photograph in the forty buildings that make up his farm equipment museum and village. In return he has asked that we give him an occasional print and help him with research to know what a late 1800s photo studio looked like. He wants to add one to the museum village that he has built by bringing old buildings from all over Ohio to his farm.

I gave him a two page exterior spread of an 1890 portrait studio and home belonging to Kinsey. The photographer best known to me for his work documenting the Pacific RR logging industry and especially the giant Shay engined logging trains with an 11x14 camera.

Jim said Kinsey used the same design as vintage green houses, glass panes in a vertical pattern with no cross wood pieces to rot, just overlapped glass. He knew this because Jim had just finished his own new-old green house. Please PM, post or snail mail any prints of early studios, interior and exterior and I will give them to him.

Thanks.

John Powers

[lenser]

There is one at the Henry Ford Museum in Greenfield Village outside of Dearborn, Mi. Perhaps they would assist with photos or plans. In the book "The Studio", one of the volumes from the old Time Life Library of Photography, there is an entire chapter titled "The Evolution of the Studio". On page 51 in that chapter is one photo of the Greenfield Village studio. There are several other images that show cameras, processing equipment proprs and backgrounds and head clamps from the very earliest era of the studio. Others show gallery and reception areas in 1800's studios.

One page 60 of the book "Photographed by Bachrach" There is a good view of the camera room in their early Boston studio.

[Joe Smigiel]

Sent you a PM with some links.

Joe

[Joe Smigiel]

Not many visuals but perhaps of some interest:

The Photographic Studios of Europe (1882) (http://www.archive.org/stream/photographicstu00pritgoog#page/n6/mode/2up)

[Struan Gray]

This studio in Tabor, Czech Republic has some interesting original plates of the studio in use, and under construction:

http://sechtl-vosecek.ucw.cz/en/cml/dir/photographic_studio_516.html


A search of google books with 'photographic journal' will turn up plenty of early journals, including details of studios and forum-like flame wars about the best layout and design. I seem to remember Thomas Sutton being particularly belligerant (as always) and dogmatic (ditto) about the best studio layout, but I can't find the exact journal now.

There is an increasing amount of information online about early Scottish photography, including studio portraiture. The edinphoto.org.uk site has some useful pictures, and information about the layout and design of studios hidden amid the incidental text. An example:

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/pp/pp_crooke_w_studio.htm#Crooke's%20Studio

For the UK at least, the phrase 'early photographic studio' and the name of a county or large town will usually turn up local historical information, which often includes pictures of the studios themselves.

[severson]

This hasn't been used as a photography studio for a long time, but still looks great from the outside:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/army_arch/6322501740/in/photostream/

Some history of the building:

http://buffaloah.com/surveys/gen/Werner.pdf

I know of a similar, smaller studio in Buffalo in which the north-facing skylight for the portrait studio was covered over when it was converted to an office building.

[John Powers]

Wow!! What a gold mine. Thank you all. These are wonderful resources. Peter Spangenberg and I shot 8x10 there for two years. It never gets boring because Jim is constantly adding new material and Peter and I were enjoying it in every season. Jim has always encouraged our NE OH Gatherings attendees to come prowl and shoot. It doesn’t hurt that it is only 1.4 miles from my house. Your generous and instant information will be a very nice way of thanking him.

Thank you very much.

If anyone else has new information to add it will be most welcome.

John

[Scott Davis]

http://dcphotoartist.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/agardnergroupcdv.jpg

Granted it's a partial view of Alexander Gardner's studio, but it is still somewhat indicative of his shooting space. I have seen other images of his studio, but none of which I have scans. The building itself is in the second photo - the shooting space would have been on the second floor, and the lab on the third. In the other photos I've seen of his studio, the shooting space has another pane like the one on the left a few feet to the right of the right-most subject in the photo.

http://www.picturehistory.com/images/products/3/0/4/prod_30487.jpg

You can see from this image that he did not have a north light studio - the street in front of the studio is D Street, which runs East-West, and 7th is to the left, which runs North-South.

http://dcphotoartist.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/20130203-152215.jpg

This is Mathew Brady's studio at today's street address of 625 Pennsylvania Avenue.

[John Powers]

Thank you Scott. Most helpful.

John