{"id":21080,"date":"2024-05-27T21:17:01","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T21:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/?p=21080"},"modified":"2024-05-27T21:17:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T21:17:01","slug":"academic-recreates-photos-by-19th-century-pioneer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/21080","title":{"rendered":"Academic recreates photos by 19th Century pioneer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/849\/cpsprodpb\/4d8b\/live\/0990f150-1857-11ef-baf9-2dfab45ba024.jpg?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Two images - one is a man using a traditional camera to take a photo of a man in a bowler hat standing against a Stonehenge rock and the other is the original black and white photograph\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image caption,The researcher was granted access to Stonehenge before visitor times to capture the images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Published27 May 2024, 07:35 BST<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A researcher has used traditional equipment and techniques to recreate images by a pioneering Victorian photographer.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year it emerged Ernest Howard Farmer was the photographer behind A Wiltshire Thatcher, which was used on the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-wiltshire-67336495\">cover of the Led Zeppelin IV album<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, Frank Menger, a historic photography expert from UWE Bristol, has replicated three images taken by Farmer taken in the 1890s at Stonehenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Menger&#8217;s recreations will sit alongside Farmer&#8217;s in a new exhibition at Wiltshire Museum in Devizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/601\/cpsprodpb\/817a\/live\/ea3f3640-1856-11ef-baf9-2dfab45ba024.png?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Frank Menger, in a yellow coat and hat, adjusting a camera from the 1890s outside\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image caption,\u201cThe main challenge of using this equipment was it was so old,&#8221; said Mr Menger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Menger, a research fellow at the centre for print research, used dark room developing techniques and heavy, bulky equipment, including a Victorian-era camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The camera uses postcard-sized glass plates coated with silver gelatine emulsion, which is left to dry before capturing images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The holders for the glass plates were vintage so there was a danger of light leakage,&#8221; said Mr Menger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;One even fell apart while I was taking the images and I had to rescue it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It was amazing to see they came out and I was pleased with the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They are similar to the originals; the glass plates have a fine grain which give detailed, sharp images, and that element was there on my photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/9906\/live\/cce40380-18e4-11ef-b374-753f4dd92fb2.jpg?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Black and white\/sepia image of a man with a beard carrying sticks on his back\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image caption,Farmer&#8217;s photo of a Wiltshire thatcher was used by Led Zeppelin in 1971<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Menger said the camera would have been &#8220;quite a feat&#8221; for Farmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He would have carried around 12 glass plates, which would have been heavy, and they would have needed to be kept in lightproof containers.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The photographer took two landscape images of Stonehenge, alongside an image of a man in a bowler hat posing in front of the stones, in precisely the same locations used for the originals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/600\/cpsprodpb\/88e2\/live\/2fb0fb80-18e5-11ef-b374-753f4dd92fb2.png?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"A man in a yellow coat with his head under the cloth of an old camera on a tripod, photographing Stonehenge at dusk\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image caption,All three of the images were taken at Stonehenge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Menger, who has used analogue photography all his life, said: \u201cPhotographers in those days needed to have some chemistry knowledge in order to coat the glass plates in a dark room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They also needed to print their photographs at home, as there wouldn\u2019t have been a lab service available at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Farmer was the son of a chemist; with a burgeoning photographic movement happening at that time, it seems he branched out to use his knowledge and expertise in chemistry to offer photographic services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen looking at his images taken in the West Country, I was struck how accomplished they were. The quality is amazing, and this was during the infancy of photography.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The exhibition, called A Wiltshire Thatcher \u2013 a Photographic Journey through Victorian Wessex, celebrates the work of Farmer and runs until 1 September<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cv22kn5l7kzo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cv22kn5l7kzo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A researcher has used traditional equipment and techniques to recreate images by a pioneering Victorian photographer. Last year it emerged Ernest Howard Farmer was the photographer behind A Wiltshire Thatcher, which was used on the&nbsp;cover of the Led Zeppelin IV &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/21080\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[623,1783,16,695,1784],"class_list":["post-21080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-camera","tag-early","tag-photography","tag-stonehenge-2","tag-victorian"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21081,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21080\/revisions\/21081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}