Mystery picture

[PeterW]

Hi,

This picture was in with a bundle of old photos and prints I picked up some time ago. It was very faded and damaged by damp where it had stuck to the glass of a picture frame, but I've repaired the damage and cleaned it up a little in PS.

It was obviously taken with a slow exposure because of the blurred moving people, typical of old view photographs taken in the 1870s with very slow plates.



I have no idea where it was taken, but it seems to have been a festive occasion of some sort with lunch tables set out in marquees. And could that be a fez the gentleman in the foreground is wearing? I find old photographs like this fascinating.

Peter W

[John Parry]

That's Camelot!!

[Journalist]

Very nice "restoration" of a fascinating snapshot How large is the original? Is it really a fez or could it be a russian hat of fur, something Cossack like... Russian aristocrats wisiting England for a foxhunt. No, I am letting my imagination take over again.

[PeterW]

Hi Øivind,

The original is 8.5 by 6.5 inches.

Peter

[Rachel]

That castle doen't look real to me.

[kamera]

An interesting shot! Does appear some festivity is going on. I also thought of Camelot because of the castle, but some of the hats do look Russian Cossack.

Ron Head
Kalamazoo, MI

[nancyp]

Ok...hope this is not to odd a question but...I have been think about the images kids are interested in these days taken with the toy holga. Of course the aim for a lot of people who modify their holgas is to get the same kind of overexposed edges that this image has. That got me to wondering...Would the blackened edges at the bottom of this picture been undesirable for the people who took the picture (I assume yes)...also would this also have been caused by overexposure on a vintage picture like this? The question makes sense in my mind anyway! I just find it amazing that what I believe would have been undesirable fault in the past is now desired! And I am also curious what expactly caused these blackened edges in vintage cameras...did it happen when the picture was taken...in development?


Interesting picture btw!

Nancy

[PeterW]

Hi Nancy,

Interesting observation. Young people looking for some sort of 'vintage' look perhaps? Anything to be different from most of today's bland cell-phone type pictures.

On vintage pictures the darkened edges would be due to underexposed, not over exposed corners (thin on a neg = dark on a print, yes?).

I don't really know the reason unless it was from using a cheaper lens that didn't really have sufficient covering power for the size of plate, or something like an old Petzval portrait lens that was designed to work at its best only in the middle of the picture so that it was a relatively large aperture to avoid long (up to a minute) exposures in portraits. Plates were a very slow speed in the late 1800s.

I can't see how it could happen in development, nor because of poor storage conditions, either before or after exposure and/or development, but I suppose this might be possible. I'm not well enough up in photographic chemistry to say.

Peter W