English Beaches: Photography


Figure 1.-- We have found what look like English snapshots in the first half of the 20th century. But on reflection many of them were actually taken by professional photographs set up on the streets. There were of course also studios where photographic portraits were raken. But the stree photographers were much less expensive and more convenient. Beach resorts and parks were especially common places to have family portraits taken. A British reader tells us, "My parents never owned a camera so all the photographs are of holidays. This was taken as we walked along the prom in Sarborough during 1956.and collected a day or so later. We are on our way to the beach to play cricket. Dad has the bat. Mum is behind rummaging through her bag. Looks as if she called out to dad who turned to see what the problem was. It was at that moment the photograph was taken. There by recording an incident of the moment but now forgotten."

England was the wealthiest country in Europe with incomes above Germany and France and other European countries. Generally a country's photographic record was a function of percapita income. But income was not a perfect determinant of photography. Europe's largest photographic record appears to be German. As far as we can tell the largest number of photographs seem to come from Germany. We are not sure about 19th century studio photography, butwe have found far more snapshots from Germany than any other European country. We can only assume that more Germans had cameras than the English. We have found what look like English snapshots in the first half of the 20th century. But on reflection many of them were actually taken by professional photographs set up on the streets. There were of course also studios where photographic portraits were taken. But the stree photographers were much less expensive and more convenient. Beach resorts and parks were especially common places to have family portraits taken. You could ask a street photograoher to take a portrait. But often in high traffic areas they took photographs of people who walked by. They or an assistant would pass out cards with the name of the studio and a print number. The photographs could then be viewed at the photography studio. If the photograph was wanted then it was purchased. A British reader tells us, "My parents never owned a camera so all the photographs are of holidays. This was taken as we walked along the prom in Sarborough during 1956.and collected a day or so later (figure 1). We are on our way to the beach to play cricket. Dad has the bat. Mum is behind rummaging through her bag. Looks as if she called out to dad who turned to see what the problem was. It was at that moment the photograph was taken. There by recording an incident of the moment but now forgotten."" We see a lot of German park and sea side photographs as well, but they look more like family snapshots.







HBC






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Created: 10:16 AM 3/14/2017
Last updated: 10:16 AM 3/14/2017