A Brief History of....

We are delighted to announce that the Derby Evening Telegraph have agreed to publish 'A Brief History of Winters' highlighting its place in the history and heritage of Derby City.
Below are a few excerpts to whet your appetite!

Midland Road, Derby

"By 1867, a purpose-built studio and premises had been constructed on the opposite side of Midland Road, designed by the Derby architect, Henry Isaac Stevens. The new premises had a row of huge, north-facing and church-like windows, allowing maximum diffused daylight to illuminate the subjects in the studio. [...] A very early central heating system was installed and although the coal-fired boiler has been removed, the huge radiators are still a feature in the building."

Industrial History

"In 1896, William Henry King joined the company as a photographic assistant, operator and re-toucher and was, in effect, Winter’s apprentice, learning all aspects of the business. A very scientific mind enabled William King to work with Winter on pioneering the use of flash photography and, at a later date, to install carbon-arc lighting adapted from the mining engineering company, Davis of Derby and powered by a generator on the premises, which was truly revolutionary for its time."

 Patronized by His Majesty

"Winter’s growing reputation for artistic photography and especially portraiture did not go un-noticed in Derbyshire and there were many famous visitors. The most prestigious patron was King Edward VII, who requested Winter to photograph him and his party at Chatsworth and the magnificent gilt-framed portrait is still on display at Winters."

Winter also photographed Edward's wife Queen Alexandra and the studio became known as 'The Alexandra Rooms'.

Winters Collection of Derby

Books about W. W. Winter Photographers

We have noticed that there are a couple of bargain price copies of The Winters Collection of Derby (Volume 1) available from Amazon at the moment. It is really worth investing in a copy if you are interested in photographic history and/or the history of Derby.

In case you need convincing we have put together a mini montage of the 120+ images from the book. Enjoy!

James Bond Cameras

Miniature Cameras

Okay, so not actually James Bond's cameras but take a look at the fantastic miniature 'spy' cameras in the Winters / Cameron collection!

V P Twin Camera

The largest of the cameras above is the VP Twin camera, origianlly launched in 1935 and relaunched in 1952. It was manufactured by W. Elliott Ltd in Birmingham, UK; and its body is made of Bakelite. It took 127 film producing sixteen 5/8" x 1¼" exposures. Small enough to fit in a top pocket!
The next size up on the image above, is the Sida Geesellschaft fur photographische Apparate m.b.H., Berlin, Germany. It shot 25x25mm images onto paper-backed 32mm "Sida" rollfilm.

'Super Snaps' Flicker

The Supasnaps Flicker was a 6cm miniature camera dating from the 1980's. Made of injection moulded
polystyrene that took a 110 cartridge film it was suitable for keeping on a keyring and was part of the modern generation of pocket cameras that took over from subminiatures.

Mycro IIIA

We've saved the best 'til last; The Mycro IIIA subminiature was last in the Mycro line and was produced in Japan for export only. You can see just how small it was here against a 50 pence piece. It used 17.5mm paper backed rollfilm with early versions producing 10×14mm exposures and later ones producing a sqiare 14×14mm exposure. The camera came with a leather case, and has a cable release attachment.

We think everyone should have one!

Camera Museum

Historical Camera Collection

As part of its working history, Winters has accumulated a collection of field and studio cameras which we display to visitors during open days and private tours. Alongside these we are now delighted to host 'The Cameron Collection'.

The Cameron Collection

On loan from Geoff and Hazel Blackwell 'The Cameron Collection' was established and developed by Frank

Cameron, a Nottingham amateur photographer who used the cameras to illustrate talks to youth groups about photography. Following his death in 2009 the collection was taken over by Jackie Blackwell, his great niece who had worked in the industry for a number of years. The collection has recently been maintained by Jackie's parents Geoff (Treasurer of the Royal Photographic Society) and Hazel Blackwell and enhanced by purchases and donations.
Additions to the collection have been received from Bromley House, Nottingham, from items surplus to their own needs. Bromley House contained the first professional photographic studio in the East Midlands from 1841.
The collection also includes a number of direct donations from photographers in the Derby area.

The Development of Camera Technology

Together the exhibitions showcase the development of camera technology from the earliest long exposure studio cameras to smaller more mobile plate cameras, and upto and including the invention of digital photography. We will be blogging here about some of the examples on display here at W. W. Winter.

Poloroid

The Polaroid 320 Land Camera was manufactured from 1969-1971. It featured folding bellows, automatic exposure (with an external 'Electric Eye' lightmeter beside the lens), and was desinged for the Polaroid 100-series Packfilm.

Penti

The Pentacon Penti was a stylish little camera introduced in 1959 by Welta, a camera maker based in Freital near Dresden in East Germany. Using a 35mm film it takes half frame images (18x24mm). On the right hand side image you can see the film advance rod. Instead of winding the film on, pressing the rod would wind on, and then pop out again as the shutter was released.

Next blog coming soon... miniature camera in the Cameron Collection!

Derby Operatic Company

Derby Heritage

We had another lovely few Heritage Open Days at the beginning of September and were lucky enough again to receive more Winter's original photographs from visitors, one of whom brought in a copy of a Derby Opera Company souvenir programme.

Commercial Photography

Hubert remembers doing regular work for Derby Theatre and Derby Operatic Company, and we were delighted to flick through the pages of the programme for the production of Glamorous Night by Ivor Novello.
You can see from the souvenir programme that the Derby Opera Company was established in 1891, and in the year of the production (1955) was performing at Derby Hippodrome Theatre.

It includes some fantastic portrait photography of the company by Hubert King who rembers cast members coming to the studio on a Sunday morning, ready in their costumes and make up.

I particularly like the portait of Company President, R. P. Williamson, with his fabulous pipe!

The progamme includes a number of adverts and it's good to see a couple of Winter's fellow Derby icons; Foulds, and Bennets.

Winter's still specilaises in portraiture - do come in for a new one or to share your old Winter's photos!

Photographic History Course

Free Online Course on Photographic History

 

The University of Edinburgh are running an online course on the history of photography from the daguerreotype to the imapct of the cheap kodak camera.

"Explore the Victorian craze for photography, examine its history, from the earliest images in 1839 and how it has influenced the way we capture and share images today as photography moved from being a niche concern of the few, to one of the most important cultural forms of the modern world."

At Winters we will be studying the course from 12 October along with archivist Jane Middleton-Smith, artist Debbie Cooper and some of our brilliant heritage volunteers. We invite you to join us and share your experience and thoughts!
You can sign up for the course on here: https://www.coursera.org/course/vicphoto
The course runs for 5 weeks and requires from 1 to 3 hours study per week.

Heritage Tours in September

National Heritage Open Days 2015
Visit us 10-12 September for a free tour!
Full details in the HOD website