History of a photograph, history of copyright

As a mystery, it's not quite up with who shot President Kennedy, or even who shot J.R., but Hugh Stephens makes a lively story out of "Who Shot the Last Spike photograph?" on his Substack newsletter on copyright issues.

It's an opportunity for Stephens to look into how photography became accepted as a creative form worthy of copyright protection, with nods to Canadian legal historian Myra Tawfik's work on the evolution of Canadian copyrights -- including her recent book For The Encouragement of Learning.

Photography’s entry into the copyright world was not without controversy. For some it was merely a mechanical process, not worthy of protection. But unlike AI-created works (as opposed to works created by humans with some assistance from AI), photography did and does allow human creators to express and interpret the world around them, albeit using a mechanical device.

I realize that this could be an awkward subject for some of my academic readers, given that Canadian educational institutions increasingly base their budgets on copyright appropriation. But copyright isn't going away -- though it seems the educational "exemption" loophole will endure at least until Access Copyright shuts down and an effective copyright collective can emerge in this country. 

Photo: by Alexander Ross, copyright 1885, long since entered into the public domain.

History is where you find it

From a little news item on inadvertent damage done to a painting in the Ontario Legislature, I learn that Queen's Park holds a version of Robert Harris's 1885 Fathers of Confederation painting, lost in Ottawa's Parliament fire of 1916.  This one was painted in 1919 by Frederick Challener, at the time a significant artist (and one who had made a previous copy of the Harris before it was destroyed).

Since the well-known copy by Rex Woods is sadly not up to the original, I was thinking this might be worth seeing (and reproducing).  Looks, however, pretty grim and brown -- unless it just needs a good clearing while the little hole recently put in it is restored.  Otherwise, we may have to stick with the Woods.  The other Challener Fathers, from 1914, is in Edmonton's Hotel Macdonald (!), according to Robert Ferguson of the Toronto Star.

Another little news item (slow day?):  Prime Minister Trudeau's new beard makes him, sez Canadian Press, the first bearded Canadian prime minister since Mackenzie Bowell.

Not exactly a good omen for Justin Trudeau, one might think:  Bowell was also the last prime minister removed from office by his own cabinet and backbench.  But looks good, I'd say. Let him keep it.

Images: Fathers from Ontario Legislature; Trudeau from Toronto Star.

Conrad Black on the fur trade

The Walrus for April 2016 has a photo essay (not on the website, at least for now) on "Canada's Oldest Profession," the fur trade, based on a moody set of black and white images by photographer Tyler Anderson, shot at trap lines and hunting camps around the contemporary north. The accompanying text, which at first I took to be Anderson's too, is an odd essay, oblivious to the images. It almost entirely about New France, which is portrayed exclusively as a fur trade outpost, as if no one ever planted a crop along the St. Lawrence.

Then I checked the byline. It's by Conrad Black.

I happened recently to be looking into Black's biography of Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt very narrowly won the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination, after many ballots, at one of the last "brokered" conventions, so there is some timely stuff in it. Once again, I concluded it's a damn good biography. This piece? It reads more like some of Peter C. Newman's effusions on the Canadian past.    

HistoryInPic yes and no?

Newly-born lamb snuggles up to a boy. 1940. Photograph by Hulton Archive. pic.twitter.com/KCNaibjS0K
— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics) January 28, 2014

'Tseems the twittersphere is going crazy for history in pics, or rather @HistoryInPics, a thing that puts up random photos from history with a minimum of caption and attribution  Started last summer by a couple of teenagers, it already has 900,000 followers. And it seems to be omnipresent whenever I direct a (brief, appalled) glance at what Twitter is doing.  According to The Atlantic:

The new account has gained this massive following without the official help of Twitter, which often sticks celebrity and media accounts on its recommended-follow list, inflating their numbers. As impressively, my analysis of 100 tweets from the account this week found that, on average, a @HistoryInPics tweet gets retweeted more than 1,600 times and favorited 1,800 times. 

But historyblogger Wynken de Worde hates @HistoryInPics:

What they don’t post includes attribution to the photographer or to the institution hosting the digital image. There’s no way to easily learn more about the image ....

She also denounces their monetizing of photographers' work and "their casual relationship to the truth."

On the upside, Wynken de Worde's post does list a slew of better curated, more thoughtful, more ethical historical image site around the web.

History of the selfie

This has been doing the rounds.  You may have seen it (I'm copying from the AHA website).  But it still impresses me.  It's a guy called Robert Cornelius (1809-93) who took a daguerrotype photo of himself outside a shop in Philadelphia. This was in 1839.  And now he lives forever, young, punkish, timeless. 

I imagine, for a moment, writing something that evoked lived reality in the past with that kind of  vividness.... 

Update:  Not entirely unrelated but pushing the bounds of the discipline a bit, there's a slightly not-safe-for-work site called Bangable Dudes in History (some dames too), which should be all over this.

Notman's Victoria Skating Carnival April 25, 1870

William Notman's first composite photograph was of the Skating Carnival at Victoria Rink held on March 1, 1870, in honour of Prince Arthur, the youngest son of Queen Victoria. It received it's first public viewing today, April 25, in 1870.

 

"Photograph | Skating Carnival, Victoria Rink, Montreal, QC, painted composite, 1870 | N-0000.116.21.1"

More information about this image 

This Victoria Rink Skating Festival was the first of Notman’s famous composite scenes. He’d take individual photos of a hundred or more people (for this skating party he took 150 individual photos) and then he’d put them into a painted composite scene – sort of a multi-media combination of photography and painting. For this scene he put an invitation notice in the newspaper for people to come in their masquerade dress and with their skates.

     Everything always looks so formal, so polite to me when I look at pictures from the past, and it gives one a skewed picture of how things really were. The skating party can’t have been so perfect – the McCord Museum cites the Montreal Gazette on April 26, 1876 [seems likely that date is supposed to be 1870] congratulating Notman for leaving out "the monstrosities and idiocies of bad taste, which never should have disfigured the Fancy Dress Assembly."

    Parties will always be parties.

 

Prince Arthur (Thunder Bay was originally called Port Arthur after Prince Arthur) later became the HRH Duke of Connaught - and the Governor General of Canada from 1911 to 1916. He was the first member of the Royal family to be a G. G. Prince Arthur is on the bottom left, towards the centre of the photo.

     Prince Arthur was only 20 at the time and was stationed in Montreal with the Rifle Brigade.

Maybe the big skating party held in his honour was the inspiration for his daughter Princess Patricia’s own elaborate skating parties in Ottawa when they lived in Rideau Hall 41 years later. She also had people dress up in the dress of different nations – a sort of fancy dress ball.  

     The Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was named after his daughter Patricia.

You can find more on the Governors Generals here

William Notman learned all he knew about photography after he’d moved from Scotland to Montreal in 1856. He became one of the most famous photographers in the world – and he was certainly an audacious businessman. He’s the one who ended up taking all the photographs of the Fathers of Confederation (and their unmarried daughters and wives who they’d brought along) at the Confederation talks in Quebec in October, 1864. He managed to get the commission for photographing the making of the Victoria Bridge in 1859, and he became Queen Victoria’s official photographer. There’s lots more on Elaine Kalman Nave’s CBC Idea’s Podcast  here.

The McCord Museum in Montreal also has an immense collection of his work and everything else Notman. I'll get to see it all for myself this May - searching for his photographs of my lost 'daughters of Confederation. See more on the daughters of Confederation