Welcome to another Luminous-Lint Newsletter.
The months fly by at dizzying speed and it is time for another Newsletter.
To all Luminous-Lint subscribers and contributors I'd like to say thanks for your continuing support.
All the best, Alan
Luminous-Lint: Weaving a Multi-Dimensional Tapestry on Photohistory - Challenges and Opportunities |
I'll be giving a lecture titled Luminous-Lint: Weaving a Multi-Dimensional Tapestry on Photohistory - Challenges and Opportunities at the Royal Photographic Society at Bristol, England, on 6 September 2019 (18:30 - 20:00).
RPS House, 337 Paintworks, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3AR, UK
Photohistory is a complex blending of biographical, technical and thematic information. Photographs and archival research materials are scattered between thousands of collections with different perspectives and cataloging standards. The traditional model of monographs and articles based on exhibitions is now being questioned by Internet based resources that bring together information from thousands of sources to create repositories of knowledge (i.e. Daguerreobase) or broader frameworks to examine the whole of photohistory (Luminous-Lint). In this talk we'll examine the progress of Luminous-Lint so far and the opportunities for collaborative research based on images from over 3,300 distinct collections.
CLICK HERE: For further details and booking on the RPS website
I look forward to meeting some of you there and here is a photo so you can recognise me...
Paul Girvan, Alan Griffiths, 22 June 2019, Digital image, Provided by the artist - Paul Girvan
LL/91514
I lecture around the world so get in touch if you need a different way of unraveling the complex threads of photohistory.
Marketing photography over the years |
Information on how photography has been marketed over the years is scattered through books, articles and images. As yet there is no all-encompassing volume that brings all the threads but not to worry as Luminous-Lint has Themes on each of the topics.
Marketing covers all the activities involved in promoting services and the transfer of goods from the producer to the consumer. It includes advertising, shipping, storing and selling as part of the overall process.
Each of the following topics can be examined on Luminous-Lint.
Advertising in newspapers
Advertising in publications
Awards and medals
Backmarks
Banknotes, premiums and tokens
Business and trade cards
Business stationery
Cases
Commercial catalogues
En plein air
Exhibitions and competitions
Handbills and broadsides
Photographer and studio labels
Photographic publications
Photographing celebrities
Popular press
Posters
Sample books and sample boards
Showcasing photographs
Signage and banners
Stamps
Studio marks in negative
Touting for business
Trade directories
For each of these subjects there are extensive examples and well structured indexes. For contemporary photography Luminous-Lint includes e-vites and other digital marketing tools.
Do send through any examples you have related to marketing. I always credit contributions and it all helps to extend our knowledge. Many thanks, Alan
Marketing - Business cards |
If you need the business card for Mathew B. Brady, Sarony or Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Luminous-Lint is an essential source.
Trade cards are also included where they relate to photography in some way.
Please get in touch if you collect business cards of photographers from any period.
Erastus Bridge (Lawrence, Mass), Business card for Erastus Bridge, Daguerrean Artist, No.3 City Block, Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass., n.d., Business card, National Gallery of Canada, The Origins of Photography: The Matthew R. Isenburg and Enhanced Isenburg Collections 1840-1880
LL/9858
Marketing - Trade directories |
Trade directories listing the principal manufacturers, suppliers, and shops of a city or region were an essential part of any expanding town. They were the "Yellow Pages" of their day and preserved as essential research tools by local studies libraries. Some trade directories had tipped-in photographs that were commissioned to illustrate the premises or goods of a vendor.
Photographers such as Isiah West Taber (San Francisco, USA), William James Topley (Ottawa, Canada) and Samuel McMullin (Philadelphia, USA) were involved in the production of photographs for trade directories.
If you have scans from trade directories I'd be most grateful.
I.W. Taber, Taber - Photographic Artist, 1880, Albumen print, 9 x 7 ins (image) 17 1/4 x 11 1/2 ins, California State Library, California Hist. Room (CALIF), Picture Collection, VAULT **f F869 S3.T23 1880
LL/84390
Marketing - Signage and display boards |
Business signage is a visual answer to the needs of a real, or potential, customer. From the earliest days of photography its adherents put up wooden and metal signs and canvas banners to highlight the services they offered. Many illustrations and photographs have survived showing signage.
Charles Marville, Rue Ollivier vers la rue St-Georges [Detail of the galley of Pierre Petit of Rue Lafayette], 1868 (ca, taken) 1871-1879 (print), Albumen print, cropped, detail, 11 1/4 x 10 3/4 in. (28.6 x 27.3 cm), Phillips - New York, The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from the Joy of Giving Something Foundation, 3 October 2017, No. 104
LL/77720
Backmarks, also called imprints, on card mounted photographs are a topic worthy of many articles and books. Carte de visites, cabinet cards and stereocards all have backs that are often more interesting than the photographs on the front as they contain additional information for photohistorians. Luminous-Lint includes extensive indexes to each of the different kinds of backmarks along with many rarer forms from around the world.
Visual indexes are continually being added to highlight specific features of backmarks.
Purviance's Photograph Rooms (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Backmark for "Purviance's Photograph Rooms, Corner Fifth & Wood Sts., Pittsburgh, Pa.", n.d., Carte de visite, back, Private collection of Drew Johnson
LL/69303
Stamps can be divided up in two ways.
- Type of stamp: The first type is a wet stamp where ink is used and the second embossed, also known as a blind ("uncoloured") stamp where a metal stamp with text, a picture or decoration is applied with pressure causing a raised relief on the matte or photograph.
- Purpose of stamp: Stamps can be for a photographer, studio, distribution organisations such as an image library, collective or publication, estate stamps that are used to indicate the prints at the time of death or those produced after the death of the photographer, and stamps used by collectors and institutions.
The preparation of chronological series of well-authenticated stamps for a photographer can be useful for dating photographs.
Sets of stamps for a single photographer are rarely published with Man Ray, Walker Evans and a few others being notable exceptions.
Robert Capa, "Photography By Robert Capa", 1962, Stamp, Larry Gottheim, Be-hold, Inc, Courtesy of Larry Gottheim - Be-Hold (48 / 200)
LL/15338
Marketing - Showing photographic skills |
Photographers frequently highlighted their photographic skills by creating photomontages, composite photographs and collages. Luminous-Lint has detailed histories of each of the different types.
Unidentified photographer(s), A Wreath of Love, 1885-1895 (ca), Albumen print, 10.2 cm (diameter), Rijksmuseum, RP-F-2001-4-57
LL/78704
So who has been involved in Luminous-Lint to date? |
Given the scale of Luminous-Lint it is difficult to remember all the names of those who have helped in ways both large and small. Having said that one should always try so I‘ve added an "Acknowledgements" page to get the ball rolling. As you go through it you will get a sense of the truly international scope of this project.
My gratitude to you all for subscribing to, and supporting, Luminous-Lint.
Free Trial of Luminous-Lint |
A FREE TRIAL for the website is currently available so send an email to alan@luminous-lint.com with your name and reasons for wanting to take a look and I'll set up a password for you.
  
Educational subscriptions |
It is time to ensure that your subscription to Luminous-Lint has been confirmed. Please check with whoever manages subscriptions to digital resources to ensure all is well. If you are a professor, researcher or student requiring access to Luminous-Lint please contact your head of department or librarian.
If you need any assistance with curriculum planning or resources to supplement your courses send me an email.
The following Themes were updated on 1 August 2019.
African Americans
Agricultural and pastoral
American struggles for civil rights
Architecture
Argentina
Art
Backgrounds and foregrounds
Backmarks
Back
Botany
Business and trade cards
Business stationery
Cabinet cards
Cameraless photographs
Cameras
Card photographs
Carte de visite
Chile
Christian architecture
Christianity
Cityscapes - Urban
Civil engineering
Cyanotypes
Daguerreotypes
Daguerreotypists - Russia
Dark tents and dark boxes
Egypt
Ephemera
Equipment
Evidence
Exhibitions and competitions
Experimental and manipulated photography
Exteriors of photographic studios
Fabricated realities
Fashion
Flora
Fruits
Gelatin silver prints
Hands
Humour
Ice and snow
Identity documents and badges
Interiors of photographic studios
Itinerant photographers
Jules Verne: Around the World in Eighty Days
Lantern slides
Legs
Magic lanterns
Marketing
Medical
Mobile studios
Mountains
New York School of Photography (1930s-1960s)
New York
Night
Norway
Patents
Photobooths
Photograms
Photograph frames
Photographers
Photographic studios
Photographic vans, wagons and cars
Photography assimilated into popular culture
Racial issues
Religious architecture
Representations of people
Rooms and their contents
Russia - Russian Federation
Scientific
Signage
Slavery, abolition and civil rights
Social life of photographs
Solar enlargers
Spirit photography and paranormal manifestations
Stamps
Stereoviews, stereographs and stereocards
Street
Tipped-in photographs and magazines and journals illustrated with photographs
Vernacular
Women photographers
X-rays
If you have suggestions for examples and subjects that should be added please let me know.
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LuminousLint 
@LuminousLint
