The Art of Photoshop in the 1930s

 

This is a post about an interesting old photographic book called "The Art of Retouching Photographic Negatives" by Robert Johnson first published in 1910 (Revised and re-written by T.S Bruce and Alfred Braithwaite). I found this book a number of years ago while browsing around a camera shop in Victoria, B.C.

The book mentions one of the outdated materials being used was something called a "Negafake" Erasing Pencil (Perhaps an interesting name for a new Photoshop editing tool). It goes onto say how the retouching methods of 1930 "are much the same as those of 1910 as far as pencil and etching work are concerned ". The book says, "A very Skilful retoucher can make drastic changes in a face, such as closing a mouth that is open too far so that the teeth are showing, straightening the eyes that are slightly crossed or even putting into the negative eyes which may have been closed while the exposure made. Such things demand great skill and should not be attempted until the worker is really expert in the use of his tools, but it is quite possible to do such things and make the results appear entirely natural in the print". 

Back then those retouchers were a big part of the portrait photography business and if anyone has ever read Edward Weston's Day Books, you will know how much he hated having to retouch the portraits he made of various people. Nowadays a photographer skillful in the use of Photoshop or other image enhancing programs that are popular these days has now become the "skillful retoucher" of the 1930s. In some ways I don't think that photography has changed all that much, the ideas are the same but the technology has changed, giving us more choices to do things much faster with a computer than what the retouchers did generations ago with a pencil, paintbrush, and etching knife. Now anyone who wants to be a "retoucher" can do so with a computer and Photoshop and make it look as good as what the retouchers did over 100 years ago. The art of retouching is indeed a lost art. By the 1970s and 1980s when I was at the start of my career there were still a few photographers employing full-time retouchers. The skill level to do work like that is admirable and amazing that they could do such work.

Below are some examples of a before and after of a retouched photograph that appears in the updated 1930 version of the book. One can only imagine how many hours of work it would have taken to re-work those negatives or prints and to make it look real.

(This article has been updated, November 4, 2020)

 

 

 

Sparks of Light

This in another picture I made at Monashee Manufacting in Kelowna of workers grinding metal, I climbed up to a storage area over looking the shop to make this image with my 4 x 5 view camera and a 120mm lens.

A Moment in Time

One of the things I love bout photography is that I can capture capture a moment of time of the daily activities of the world around me with my camera, a slice of life as it were. Photographically this can sometimes create some unique views, like the image posted , as the worker at Monashee moved to and fro at his work station, the one second time exposure, created a blurring effect, but also gives the image an anonymous feel, it could have been taken during a different time era, as the machinery and building dates from the second world war. The picture was taken with my 4 x 5 view camera and a 120mm lens.

Mighty Machines

I had the opportunity recently to photograph inside one of Kelowna's oldest machine shops, Monashee Manufacturing, inside the 1940's style building with a cathedral like feel are machines of various vintages, including a few that date back to the second world war era. I felt like I had walked back in time. The machinery is used by the employees to take raw metal of different sizes to be shaped, pressed, welded and cut into various finished projects. The image posted is from an old milling machine, it was taken with my 4 x 5 view camera and a 120 mm lens.

The Simplicity of Winter

Now that winter-like weather is here, I am looking forward to getting out on my snow shoes and making images of the snowy landscape, the image posted here is from Powers Creek which runs near my home, the nice thing about where I live is that I don't have to go far to find photographic landscape subject material. On this particular day in March of 2004 there had been a fresh snowfall and I used my 4 x 5 view camera and a 120 mm lens to make a picture of small bushes against the frozen creek.

When it Rains it Pours

On the West Coast of British Columbia it can really rain at times, making it a challenge to get out and photograph especially if one is using a view camera like myself. I had a very memorable trip to Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island in October of 2003, on the day of the drive up to the park it was a torrential down pour of water from the heavens like something I have never seen in my life. I knew if it kept raining like it was that I would be doing very little view camera landscape photography, I was not really too concerned, I was more fascinated than anything else with the unbelievable amount of rain falling, all along Highway 4 between Port Alberni and Ucluelet there were hundreds of waterfalls of various sizes cascading down from the mountains above. The next day the weather cleared somewhat and I had a wonderful time over two full days capturing on film the misty, foggy and mysterious coast of Vancouver Island, including the image posted of South Beach, said to be one of the favourite spots of Group of Seven painter Arthur Lismer. The rain was also a welcome relief to myself for other reasons, I reside in B.C.'s south central Okanagan area and it had been a very hot and dry summer that year, with very little rain. The dry conditions caused a lot of forest fires of historic proportions in B.C.'s interior region and as a photographer for the Kelowna's newspaper, The Daily Courier, I photographed a gigantic forest fire ( big by Canadian standards ) which saw 235 homes destroyed by flames. During that time there were many days when the air was thick with fog like smoke in addition to the heat and I was thinking how nice it would be to have a down pour of rain at that very moment but as with all things in nature nothing is on demand, so when it finally did rain, it really did pour.

The Kludahk Trail

I made this image of the forest while hiking the Kludahk trail with family members this past October. The weather was warm and sunny with almost summer like like temperatures, I was able to take advantage of the early morning light and set up my 4 x 5 view camera and a 120 mm lens to make this image.

Drifting Clouds over the Mountain Peaks

I made this image of two of the ten peaks surrounding Moraine Lake during a trip to Banff National park this past September, this image was made with my 4 x 5 view camera and a 270mm lens, it was a enjoyable experience making images of the snow covered mountains, quit a spectacular sight, I quite enjoyed my perch on the rock pile and watching the drifting cloud move in and out amongst the mountain peaks.