Photography on Location

Dry plate photography encouraged the professional photographer to leave his studio and journey to the homes of his customers. No longer weighed down by heavy wooden chests filled with bottled chemicals nor encumbered by a darkroom tent, professional photographers were ready to travel longer distances in order to secure commissions. Early in 1881, Messrs Lombardi & Co a firm of photographers with a town studio at 113 Kings Road, Brighton placed advertisements in the local press "to inform the Gentry and Clergy of Sussex that they are now prepared to Visit the different Estates in this and other Counties to Photograph Buildings, Horses, Groups etc. etc . . Schools attended either in town or country."

As early as 1867, Messrs W. & A.H. Fry artists & photographers of 68 East Street, Brighton had specialised in taking photographs of groups out-of-doors. An advertisement in the Brighton Guardian of 14th August 1867 announced they had "Special Apparatus for taking Out Door Pictures of School Groups, Cricket Elevens, Croquet Parties, Archery Meetings, Rifle Corps and Country Seats." Having already established a reputation for outdoor group photography, Walter Fry and his younger brother, Allen Hastings Fry, were keen to take advantage of the mobility afforded by dry plate photography. In an article published in 'The Professional Photographer' in June 1916, Allen Hastings Fry looked back over his long photographic career. The magazine observed that Mr Fry appeared to be "a portait photographer glad to get away from the confinement of his studio." In the interview, A.H.Fry revealed that he had "photographed two hundred Public School Cadet and Officers' Training Corps", adding the observation that he had "travelled over 9,000 miles during the year I was taking the photographs."

 

 

Group photograph of members of the Brighton Swimming Club taken in front of their clubhouse on Brighton Seafront in 1881. Instantaneous photography meant that large groups could be photographed successfully on location.


 

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Website last updated: 23 December, 2002

 

This website is dedicated to the memory of Arthur T. Gill (1915-1987), Sussex Photohistorian

 




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