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Move over selfies – Cartes de Visites were the first great photography craze

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Before Instagram, selfie sticks, disposable cameras, Polaroids, and box brownies, there were carte de visites – small photographic albumen prints, mounted on card, which were wildly popular during the Victorian era.

Also known as CdV, carte de visites followed the early pioneering photographic techniques such as daguerreotype and ambrotype, which were expensive and difficult to reproduce. Cartes de visites were born from calling cards, which bore the owner’s name and usually an emblem, and were presented to the host during a social visit. Homes often had a tray near the door for collecting calling cards.

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This “flying train” film footage shows a fascinating look into 1902 Germany with incredible detail

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In Wuppertal, Germany in 1902 the “flying train” was about to open. Of course, the train didn’t really fly, it is suspended from above. construction of the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn began in 1898 but it didn’t begin to open until in 1901. It’s actually still in operation today, despite having shut down briefly after damage during World War II.

This video was shot during 1902 and shows an incredibly high level of detail and quality, even by relatively recent standards. According to the Museum of Modern Art, the film was shot on Biograph 68mm film stock, which offers up a huge frame for capturing a lot of detail.

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Photographer recreates iconic Thomas Jefferson’s portrait with his sixth great-grandson

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Photographer Drew Gardner recreates portraits of some of the most famous historic figures, but not with just anyone. He photographs their direct descendants and recreates the iconic portraits to the finest details. One of the latest recreations he made was done with Shannon LaNier, a news anchor, an author, and the sixth great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson.

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What’s in a photograph? – Time machines and legacies

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I don’t remember the first time I became aware of my family photo album, but from a very young age I always found looking at those photos a time absorbing, and totally enthralling pastime. I would sit for long periods of time staring at those familiar faces, and all those captured moments of times gone by, and lose myself in a world of wonder.

‘’Mum, who’s this little girl here?’’, ‘’Who’s that army man?’’, ‘’Where’s this?’’ I would ask, pointing at faded black and white images displayed proudly in the behemoth album that sat on my lap, squashing me into the armchair.

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How still life came to photography

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A while back, I had another roundtable discussion at the Film Photographers Association. This time the subject was Still Life Photography. It is a genre we all take for granted and include in it a great variety of photographs. I would like to explore the origins of still life in painting, how it came to photography, and eventually expanded in coverage and scope. Mind you, I do not intend to limit anyone’s vision but to make the reader a bit more aware of the origins of still life. And, by no means, is it the last word on the subject.

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The Smithsonian puts almost 3 million high-res images online, free for everyone to download and use

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The Smithsonian Institution has released an online gallery of 2.8 million images with more to come. The massive collection includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, along with nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo. And the best of all is: all photos are copyright-free and available for you to download and use.

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Library of Congress and 12 other institutions release over 1,600 images for public use

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Most of us know Unsplash as a home of free stock photos (and an endless source of discussion about whether or not we should share our images for free). But today, there’s a good news story coming from the company. Thanks to its latest partnership, Unsplash is now offering a selection of historical photos free for everyone to download and use.

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Paris Musées makes over 62,000 of historic photos copyright free and available online

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If you enjoy historic photos and need them for any purpose, here’s a real gem. Paris Musées has just launched an online collection with more than 100,000 digital reproductions of classic artwork. Among them, there are 62,500 photos, all of them scanned in high-resolution and publicly accessible under a CC0 license.

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Take a trip down Nikon lens memory lane from their first lenses for Canon cameras to modern Z mount

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Like many people, I haven’t always been the biggest fan of Ken Rockwell over the years. But it’s Christmas Eve, and I’m in a relatively festive mood, so here we go. Ken has put out a video on the history of Nikon lenses that’s actually got some quite interesting information about it. It starts way back at Nikon’s beginnings 100 years and goes right up to the modern Z mount lenses.

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This is how 1960s photographers predicted the ‘70s camera technology

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When you were a kid, could you ever have imagined all the camera technology we have today? Azriel Knight stumbled upon an interesting article from 1970. Six photo industry leaders from the 1960s predicted the future of photography and what the 1970s would bring. Did they make correct assumptions? Let’s find out.

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