The Time Machine and all that Jazz
Brian Bower FRPS gave what has become a regular after-Christmas presentation, on Tuesday 12th January, This time Brian looked at early significant images by the early photographers, before going into some detail about the evolution of Leica cameras towards the present digital age. After the interval Brian entertained us with digital AV presentations of recent trips he had made to the Caribbean and to Memphis.
Brian noted that camera images record, for posterity, a moment in time; and in this sense are time machines. Early cameras were bulky with large emulsion plates and the emulsions were slow (ISO values in single figures), So relatively static scenes were the ones that could be recorded, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe recorded for posterity many scenes around Whitby as early as the 1870’s. Some remarkable images from war; the Crimean war, the relief of Mafeking, and the Spanish Civil war were produced. Robert Capa in a famous image recorded the moment a soldier in the Spanish Civil War had been hit (1935), and went on to capture instants of the D-Day landing (1944) and the faces of victims of the Hiroshima bombing. We saw pictures of early cars (1905), Ascot, just after the death of Edward VII (everyone in black); the Abdication of Edward VIII, Hitler with Mussolini , Chamberlain with his piece of paper “Peace in our time”, and the 1966 World Cup Football winners,
Henri Cartier Bresson (born 1908) was an early adopter of the 35mm Leica camera, which allowed him to become a master of candid photography. Brian has been a keen advocate of the Leica. The first prototypes were built by Oskar Barnack in 1913. They went through several iterations and in 1923 a prototype series of 31 were produced, to immediate success..The Leica II in 1932 had a built-in rangefinder coupled to the lens focusing mechanism, In 1954 the M3 introduced the bayonet type lens mount. The M8 was the first digital M model introduced whilst the M9, introduced in 2009, is the first full frame digital camera produced by Leica.
The Caribbean AV was described by Brian as being a trip around the many islands in 7 minutes flat. Val and himself had been on a sea-cruise, but instead of doing the organized tours they had taken a taxi each time, to do their own thing.
In his vote of thanks Tony Redford remarked that we had had three talks for the price of one; a look into the early history of photography, a look at the evolution of the 35mm camera, and a trip around the Caribbean and the town of Memphis: three contrasting talks and we had enjoyed all three. The room had been packed for the talk and the applause was heartfelt.