This is a photo of my great-grandmother, Olive Bishop, who was a niece of Allan Hughan through her mother Bertha Hughan and Allan being siblings.I have three copies of this photo...one has the oval Allan Hughan stamp on the reverse; one has the date 1878 written, and the other is completely lacking in any photographer's marks or handwriting at all.
There are also photos of exactly the same style taken of her elder brother Roland and younger brother Guy- I would stake my life that they were taken at the same sitting in 1878.I just don't feel confident that Allan was the photographer-would he have been able to make copies from originals sent to him? I would love to know.
1 comment:
My dear Jen,
I may have an answer to your question re. to Allan's ability to make copies.
Indeed, at that time, the photographs were developped by "contact" : you put the negative againt the albumine paper and the image is transfered in positive. But to make a copy, you have first to create a "negative" of your positive picture. Therefore, it requires to take it in picture. Does the photos have exactly the same aspect and the same size ?
To me, the existence of several samples of this photograph is linked to the fact that, once you have a negative, you can develop as many positives as you want. As a consequence, Allan might be the photograph and developped it in triplicates.
Cheers,
Manon
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