Rediscovering 35mm Colour Slide Family Snaps

Posted on November 11, 2021 by Megha Rajguru Standard Respond

PhD student Jayne Knight reflects upon her family photo collections, photo technologies and their relevance today. Jayne is researching the Kodak Collection at the National Science and Media Museum for her PhD.

1. The family 35mm colour slides in storage. Personal Collection.

The family photography collection of my paternal grandparents has been a source of intrigue and inspiration for much of my thinking about popular photography however, one decade of family photos in the form of 35mm colour slides from the 1960s, was until recently, the forgotten decade of family snaps.

In the 1930s, my nan, in her teens, began capturing family life, events and holidays on her Kodak Brownie camera, snapshooting with my grandad until the 1990s with various cameras and creating many family photo albums, with Bonusprint being the last processing company of choice for my grandparents favoured 5×8 prints. Eventually my grandparents succumbed to the decline in popularity of analogue, never feeling the same enthusiasm for digital. For over seventy years, my grandparents snapshooting practices captured birthdays, Christmases, weddings, childhood and holidays, subjects shaped by companies like Kodak, Ilford and Boots whose guides, advertisements and packaging encouraged these events to be recorded with their products and services.

My family photos, characteristic of many other family photo collections take many different forms, reflecting the changes in technology and popularity of new products, services as well as ways of viewing. Studio photographs, assorted Kodak Brownie negatives and prints, real picture postcards, itinerant seaside photographs, 35mm negatives and prints, collages and albums represent some of these different types. Examining the seventy years of my family’s photos, identifiable photographic trends have seamlessly connected different decades of family life, except for one, the 35mm colour slide transparencies from the 1960s which were until recently detached and a forgotten part of the family collection.

2. The family Argus PreViewer, made in the 1960s. Personal Collection.

Colour transparencies, small card or plastic frames measuring 2×2 inches holding a 35mm colour positive image, were mostly viewed through photographic apparatus such as pocket viewers and projectors. Taken on the family’s Halina 35x camera, and often using the popular Kodachrome film, the existence of the colour slides was known to my immediate family, stored under the bed for twenty years in the plastic containers of processing companies. Last year, blowing off the dust I decided to take a closer look at the 35mm slides, seeking to find images of my dad as a child which were notably absent from the well-kept, and largely chronological, photographic family collection that resides with my grandad. Not only did I rediscover a decade of family photos, but I also became fascinated with 35mm colour slides and the experience of viewing them.

3. My nan, on holiday in Dymchurch c.1965. 35mm slide. Personal collection 4. My dad and his many toys, c.1966. 35mm slide. Personal collection.

Spanning the 1960s, the Kodachrome colour snapshots still impress through the vintage Argus PreViewer that had been gathering dust alongside the slides, acting as a window on a decade that embraced bold colourful prints and family fun. Deckchairs, garden toys and patterned dresses, like the slides and viewing apparatus themselves, provide a snapshot of 1960s lifestyle and design.

In a decade that saw a spike in photographic activity, due to the arrival of my dad, 380 35mm colour slides and hundreds of feet of cinefilm captured his childhood. Separated from the rest of the family photo collection, the 35mm slides (and cinefilm) had until now been largely side-lined due to their form. Considered by my family as trickier to view, susceptible to dust, awkward to store and reliant on other ageing apparatus, they have been considered an obsolete media. For me, viewing slides through a pocket viewer or setting up a projector is as interesting as the image subject, reminiscent of handheld three-dimensional stereo-viewers and shared viewing experiences of magic lantern shows.

4. My dad and his many toys, c.1966. 35mm slide. Personal collection.

As the 35mm slides have shown me, some types of family photography, such as photo albums, have remained at the forefront of reminiscent viewing experiences with the more apparatus dependent 35mm slide viewing fading into the background, despite their shared subjects. The 35mm colour slides have now been scanned and printed as more conventional 4×6 prints for other family members who had never seen them, but for me, the act of viewing through the original 1960s projection is as much a part of the forgotten decade as the images themselves and will remain a ritualistic viewing experience when revisiting the family snaps in the future.

“Folkestone in a Crab”: A Photographic Souvenir

Posted on October 14, 2020 by Annebella Pollen Standard Respond

PhD student Jayne Knight reflects on a curious find on a trip to a seaside town.

Folkestone in a Crab, unfolded. Photograph by Jayne Knight.

I first spotted Folkestone in a Crab in the shop window of Rennies Seaside Modern, in the Kentish town of Folkestone. At first glance it was hard to determine what it was; the crab shaped object lay flat and its interior was hidden, presented in the window display alongside other curious collectables for sale. What exactly was Folkestone in a Crab?

Opening the crab and pulling on its tab, a series of folded photographic images were revealed. Small enough at 13 x 8cm to be posted in an envelope or kept as a small memento of a trip to Folkestone, the fold-out photo souvenir would have been purchased at desirable Victorian and Edwardian seaside locations, sold alongside more standardised picture postcards during their ‘golden age’.

The crab was made by Edward Thomas West Dennis (E.T.W.D., Ltd), a well-known postcard printer and publisher based in Scarborough, and later London. Dennis sold his first picture postcard in 1894, becoming the first to privately publish postcards, a commercial venture made possible by changes in Post Office regulations. At the printworks in Scarborough, Dennis who founded his stationery and printing business in 1870, began printing postcards, both illustrated and photographic, capturing the landmarks and popular views of seaside destinations. Dennis expanded his family business to publish view-books and novelty items and later exported postcards internationally. The company closed in 2000 after 130 years of business.

The crab design was registered by E.T.W.D in 1908, and used as a template for different seaside towns. A second example, Margate in a Crab, identical in format, presented photographic images of another Kent harbour town, both were historically popular with tourists and those seeking the advertised health benefits of seawater bathing. The crab was a design suitable for harbour towns with strong fishing identities, representing one of the town’s main industries and a popular pastime of tourists.

Folkestone in a Crab, close-up of contents. Photograph by Jayne Knight.

Folkestone’s popularity soared with the Victorians and Edwardians, the grand Victoria Pier, harbour, Leas Lift and the elegant Leas promenade walk that offered views of France on a clear day, were all recognised landmarks of the town. These sights provided postcard publishers with desirable images to be used on their products, ideal for customers wishing to keep such images as souvenirs or to post in an envelope, sharing what Folkestone had to offer as a leisure destination. Many of the landmarks remain unchanged today, with the exception of the pier, having been defined by turn of the century popularity and cultural significance, contributed to by the sharing of popular imagery through postcards and novelty objects such as the crab.

The twelve black and white photographic images folded inside the crab use the more unusual format of the novelty cover to present Folkestone’s landmarks, differing from the more common two-dimensional singular image postcards. The series of images featured were company stock photos, used by postcard publishers to mass produce inexpensive postcards for sale. Unlike postcards, these novelty fold-outs did not have a designated writing space, although blank space was given on the inside cover, instead they relied on the photographs and their presentation as a form of visual communication.

A fascinating object, these mass produced souvenirs are scarcely found in comparison to the number of picture postcards for sale in the realms of online auctions, collectibles shops and flea markets. In part, it can be assumed that they cost more to produce and purchase, resulting in fewer in circulation or because as an object that required physical handling, folding its image component in and out for viewing resulted in wear and tear, and disposal. This example was a gift “from aunty,” as written on the inside cover, its broken paper clasp reattached with tape, perhaps kept in a scrapbook or family collection, a treasured memory of a great day out. Over one-hundred years in age, the crab’s value as an object for exploring photographic souvenir culture is intriguing. This unusually designed photographic souvenir captures Folkestone’s seaside charm and Edwardian culture in one little crab.

Irving Penn at the Grand Palais, Paris

Posted on March 10, 2018 by Harriet Atkinson Standard Respond

Second year Fashion and Dress History student Hon Yan Lau discusses visiting a retrospective of the work of photographer Irving Penn

Irving Penn on a shoot

Nine of the covers Penn did for Vogue during his 66 years working with the magazine

Over the Christmas break, I visited the best exhibition I have ever seen. This was the touring work of famed American fashion photographer, Irving Penn (1917-2009). The exhibition, held at Paris’s Grand Palais, was organized by The Réunion des musées nationaux in France- Grand Palais with The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in conjunction with the Irving Penn Foundation. It was the first major retrospective of Penn’s seventy year career since his death in 2009 and the 235 photographic prints provided insights into his vision, work and life.

Pablo Picasso, Cannes, 1957 by Irving Penn

In the exhibition, the curators focused on eleven aspects of his career: ‘still life and early street photography’, ‘existential portraits’ (1947-1948), ‘In Vogue’ (1947-1951), ‘Cuzco’ (1948), ‘Small Trades’ (1950-1951), ‘Classic Portraits’ (1948-1962), ‘Nudes’ (1949-1950), ‘Worlds in a Small Room’, ‘Cigarettes’, ‘Late Still Life’ and ‘Time Capsules’. Penn’s works left a significant impact both on the fashion world and on photography and the exhibition highlighted his methods of working. Before he shot his sitters, for example, he would have a long conversation with them in order to put them at ease and to get the best out of them. He said: “Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world […] Very often what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe”.

Yves Saint Laurent, Paris, 1957

The existential portraits section – my favourite part of the exhibition – included many familiar faces such as boxing legend Joe Louis, Audrey Hepburn, Yves Saint Laurent, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Penn converted colour photos to black and white in order to bring out the sitters’ emotion and expression, saying: “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it; it is, in one word, effective.”

Irving Penn was shown at the Grand Palais from 21 September 2017 to 29 January 2018

Volunteering: where might the ‘positive feedback loop’ take you?

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Verity Clarkson Standard Respond

Lisa Hinkins, currently in her final year studying BA (Hons) History of Art and Design, gives an update on the diverse volunteering opportunities available via the University of Brighton – and the unexpected places they have led…

In my first year of the BA (Hons) History of Art & Design course, I was asked if I could write for our blog about my experiences of volunteering. In it I mentioned the ‘positive feedback loop’ from my experience of coordinating volunteers at a Scrap store I ran, to my volunteering with Photoworks and Fabrica. Since then, I have participated many hours of learning and creating within my voluntary roles. On the way, I have met and made friends with many different people. Fabrica has been a refuge from many stresses and an outlet to experiment in writing for their Response magazine, create workshops and interact with the public in Front of House duties for exhibitions.

The initial few months of volunteering within the arts gave me the confidence to apply for a job at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery as a casual gallery explainer. For nine months, I was part of a team working in the Fashion Cities Africa exhibition, following which I worked with the Constable and Brighton exhibition. While engaged with the Museum, it has led to some other opportunities within the organization, which have been very interesting and invaluable learning experiences. So, my volunteering led to a positive outcome of a paying job.

Not only have I been able to earn money from something I enjoy, I continued my volunteering during my second year of study. Somehow, I managed to rack up over 90 hours of volunteering! It has been important to keep in contact with Kat (neé Turner) Saunders, Volunteering Project Officer for Active Student Volunteering Services, as she was able to ensure I received continued opportunities with Photoworks, which included creating a workshop during 2016’s Brighton Photo Biennial at the Ewen Spencer installation at Fabrica. Another benefit of keeping registered with the university Volunteering Services, is that your volunteering hours are officially recognized by it, so for the past two years I have received certificates recognizing my dedication.

In June, I was completely taken aback when Kat Saunders sent me an invitation to attend the Mayoral reception for University of Brighton student volunteers, part of celebrations for National Volunteers’ Week. Around twenty students were invited from across the Brighton campuses to the reception in acknowledgement of the many hours of dedicated service in organizations across the city. It was an honor to be asked and to represent the City campus. It was also a great excuse to eat far too much cake in the Mayor’s Parlour in the Town Hall! And it was a delight to meet the exuberant Mayor, Mo Marsh, who took time to speak to all of us about our experiences and thank us.

A week later our group photograph with the Mayor was featured inside The Argus newspaper. Rather embarrassingly the callout for students to send a few words about their volunteering experiences, for the article seemed to result in only mine being published, but Fabrica director Liz Whitehead was truly delighted that her organization got a mention in my statement.

That positive feedback loop has endured: volunteering, job, celebration, recognition, continued volunteering. I would encourage my fellow students to sign up with Active Student Volunteering Services. It has been one of the best things I have done during this journey through my degree.

Learning from Volunteering: making it happen at Brighton Museum

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Verity Clarkson Standard 1

University life opens up opportunities to make a difference in the community and learn new skills in the process. Lisa Hinkins, a first year BA (hons) History of Art & Design student, describes the enriching experience of volunteering for the Photoworks ‘Making it Happen’ project.

I knew I had made the right decision to study at the University of Brighton after we had a few lectures regarding managing wellbeing and employability. Having left the world of work at the end of September, after twenty-three years of 9 to 5, some reassuring words that the university took student wellbeing and life during and after studying seriously were important to me, especially as I was taking tentative steps towards a new career in an area I have always been passionate about.

In my former employment, the Waste & Recycling section of a local authority, the emphasis on volunteering was important for conveying the message of sustainability and recycling. My manager enjoyed bring university students into our hub, teaching and directing them, while also learning from them too. I picked up on this ‘positive feedback loop’ with how I managed and taught my volunteers for the scrap store I ran from our building. The volunteers not only gave valuable time to the store, but I was greatly enriched learning new art and craft ideas from them, while also discovering how interesting these people were.

So, as a new student I embarked upon seeking out volunteering opportunities. My first step was meeting with Kat Tucker, Volunteering Project Officer for Active Student Volunteering Services. Kat has given me excellent support over the past 5 months, providing help and advice with applications for volunteering opportunities. My first placement was with Photoworks and was a month-long position in January under the banner ‘Making it Happen 2016’. This was an open day to the University of Brighton’s Photography department for 16-18 year olds who may have not considered the possibility of university study before.

With five other students, we learned from photographer/artist Annis Joslin, how to plan and deliver photography based workshops with school students aged 16-18. I participated in a series of three hour training sessions led by Annis, which allowed me to learn skills needed to lead workshops. The requirements of the role were to have an open-mind and hands on approach to art and design and wanting to gain practical work experience in arts education.

Photoworks Making it Happen workshop, February 2016 Photo © Giovanni Estrella

The group divided into pairs. Myself and a fellow volunteer researched, planned and prepared workshops based at the Brighton Museum, around the photography exhibition ‘Pierdom’ by Simon Roberts. I learnt to work ideas up very quickly, get to understand new ways of working for community arts education and develop trust with other volunteers that I had only just met. We all had to lead one workshop three times during the day, with up to fifteen school students in each session.

My workshop was titled ‘The Art of Looking’. I wanted the school students to spend time looking at the exhibition images and form individual ideas about them, working in teams discussing ideas together. This helped them to become confident in expressing thoughts from looking and reacting to the images and be able to articulate those thoughts by talking in front of other people. I used techniques such as word cards they had to blindly select from to stimulate ideas.

Being able to deliver ideas and education to younger people was exhilarating, extremely satisfying and I enjoyed listening to them react to the exhibition, with their own ideas and thoughts. The students enjoyed it, too: positive feedback included, ‘Enjoyed looking closer at the images and relating them to words. Made me look at them more and appreciate the detail in them.’

I am now looking forward to receiving an interview date for my next volunteering opportunity. It isn’t just about what looks good on your CV, but how these experience can nurture your own thirst for learning, being creative and boosting your confidence.

Why Grandma and Grandpa wore what they wore: Fashioning Everyday Lives In London and New York

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Verity Clarkson Standard Respond

Fashion history is about much more than elite garments. Amy Hodgson has been intrigued by the everyday fashion choices of ordinary people in the final year of her BA (hons) Fashion and Dress History studies.

The option module ‘Fashioning everyday lives in London and New York’ has been essential to my understanding of fashion and dress history: observing and questioning the ordinary over the extraordinary, theorizing the overlooked and mundane, asking how fashion and modernity is seen in the ordinary and average areas of society, and how modernity, post-modernism, geography, capitalism, or globalization could affect everyday fashion choices. It has been taught by Professor Cheryl Buckley and is based on new research that she is carrying out. Professor Buckley has just joined the University of Brighton, and it is great that BA students are taught by staff who are leading research in the subject.

This option has helped broaden my understanding of how we look at the average person and their choice of dress. I have learned that fashion isn’t just about the most modern or groundbreaking clothing, but can be seen on the streets on ordinary people going about their daily lives. Questioning the everyday highlights differences. As Ben Highmore observes in his introduction to The Everyday Life Reader, ‘in its negotiation of difference and commonality it might, potentially, find new commonalities and breathe new life into old differences’. Negotiating the different and common, or modern and traditional is witnessed repeatedly when observing everyday fashion; how people may choose to consume the latest fashion on their own, possibly more traditional, terms may uncover issues of gender, race, ethnicity or generational differences.

This option touches on a broad range of subjects, from mass-consumption and ‘fast-fashion’, to geography, feminism and museum studies. All serve the purpose of highlighting how fashion changes and is used on a day-to-day basis. Understanding how fashion is consumed in everyday terms offers insight into society and how, for example, mass-consumption may allow a broader range of people to consume and partake in fashion on their own terms. Geography and fashion cities also play a large part in this option: how fashion operates within a city, and how this in turn affects the peripheral towns has been a key element in uncovering how fashion, and the modern, is witnessed in areas that may be deemed unfashionable or less modern.

Grandma and Grandpa photographic collage

‘Grandma and Grandpa collage’, 1940s, accessed 29/05/14, JPEG, Authors Personal Photograph.

My favourite aspect of this module is studying images: images of ordinary people on their way to work, shopping, partaking in the mundane, everyday chores that may be overlooked by many. Students on the course enjoyed this aspect of the module, choosing to study their own family photos, such as the ones above. Personal photographs of grandmas and grandpas, for example, brought to light various issues of class, modernity or geography, that were then discussed in presentations and class debates. This un-picking of images highlighted how society consumes and chooses to engage in fashion, challenging the understanding of fashion as structured. Studying a variety of images highlighted how a mix of old and new silhouettes are constantly seen through all decades, proving that fashion is a constant recirculation, and that there are no clear boundaries.

This option has opened my eyes to the everyday. I no longer walk down the street and take my surroundings for granted. I am aware of shopping and my sartorial choices. I now question the ordinary practice of getting dressed in the morning, and how like many, I chose to represent myself to the outside world. Studying Sophie Woodward and her book, Why Women Wear What They Wear, has highlighted this aspect of everyday choices, as Woodward concentrates on theorizing these simple acts and the ‘imagined projections of how others might see them’.

This option has helped me apply various theories to the everyday, and the everyday fashions that everyone engages in, and how subjects such as, modernity, post-modernism, geography, capitalism, or globalization affect people’s ordinary choices and are witnessed in their day-to-day projected self.

History of Art and Design Blog

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