The history of photography in Northern Ireland exhibition, Ulster Museum

I attended this exhibition whilst a sitter was looking after my mother.

The Ulster Museum has a large archive of photographs taken in Northern Ireland from the very beginning of photography in the 1850's. Recently they re-examined the archive in the light of the digital age which allows copies of very fragile and light sensitive photographs to be exhibited.

They also have a good selection of old cameras. So it turns out my 2 Olympus Trip 35 cameras are museum pieces now! I bought one in the 1980's after an uncle lent me his to take photographs of my friends during my last days at school. I took photos with it for a few years and then there was a long gap when I was very ill and by the time I woke up it was the digital age. One other type of camera they had I found interesting – the concertina type used by John Hinde for his iconic Irish postcards(some of which were on show too). I did a project on Hinde for my Btec level 3 in photography.

The  photos are exhibited chronologically. The first photo of Belfast which shows old buildings being demolished was a calotype taken in 1854 and it is a digital copy of a now very delicate image which had deteriorated a great deal - it probably had acid in the paper in my opinion. Nowadays people can spend a lot on specifically acid free paper when actually these days most paper is acid free anyway since that is the cheapest method of producing it – so save your pennies!

Next ''cartes-de-visite” were very popular from the 1860's to the 1900's – on one side of the little card was a portrait studio image and on the other side there was an ad for the photographer – these ads which were intricately designed were works of art in their own right.

Then “cabinet cards” which were bigger than cartes-de-visite became common.

After that portrait cards arrived and subjects were often soldiers who were about to go off to fight in the Great War so they posed together with their families often. The subject matter of portrait cards was also more varied – it could be eg an athlete and unposed shots were tried for the first time as more people  owned cameras.

Following this there was a selection of John Hinde and others' souvenir postcards. Hinde is well known in England for his pictures of Butlin's holiday camps. Here is one card from my own collection – the lake in Glencar (immortalized in The Stolen Child a poem by WB Yeats) - to give you an idea of his vivid colours. There was no saturation in Photoshop in those days (they were all processed in Italy – many's a blue sky in Ireland was actually Mediterranean).

 

Next the photos on show enter the modern era – there are exhibits from  the BBC  and the Radio Times for example.

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition and afterwards I relaxed in the very good and busy(half term) cafe downstairs which had free wifi.

References

http://nmni.com/um/Visiting-Information/Find-us