Featured Street Life In London 1877 by Thompson

An amazing book (that I don't own),'Street Life In London' 1877 by John Thompson.I'd love to own just one of these plates,let alone the entire book.

 

Wonderful! I just ran across this blog post with many pictures. Mr Thomson published a magazine of the same name. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/03/28/john-thomsons-street-life-in-london/

 

You could have bought it at auction in 2022, together with Street Incidents
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auc...john-thomson-street-life-in-london-and-street

But it's still available at Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Street-Life-London-Photographic-Illustrations/dp/1941667031

 

Fardon's 1856 Views of San Francisco photographic folio would work for me too.

 

Interesting!
I always wonder how true to life photos like these really were. I'm no photo expert, but back in 1877 didn't a photo require some serious equipment and several minutes exposure? The subjects had to be deliberately posed.

 

I'm not sure how that would make them less true. Less spontaneous, of course.

Debora

 

Hoping that 'foot' rise or support ISN'T as HEAVY as it looks!!!!!

 

1850's Caddish English 'Fop'-damned bounder ! I believe this callow fellow is 'high hatting' those two innocents.

 

Photography using a wet collodion emulsion on glass as the negative (1851 - c.1881) required only a few seconds exposure, depending on lighting conditions. In 1878, Edward (Eadweard) Muybridge developed techniques fast enough to photograph a galloping horse, using a series of triggered cameras with fast shutter speeds.

 

Not when the photo was taken, that shoe solved the problem. It probably also solved the problem of developing arthritis in his hip joint.

I speak from experience, although the length difference of my legs is not nearly as bad as his was, but my hip was beginning to play up. I wear a high insole in my shoes, and have adjusted sandals. It is hardly noticeable, I have become a good 'home cobbler' over the years.

 

I too wear a lift in my left foot shoe as I was hopping trains at age 12 and while atop a parked freight, was blown off by coming in contact with the tension wires above that held 50,000 volts. In my right hand and out my left foot. 5 surgeries later the growth slowed hence the lift. It was a shocking experience to say the least.

 

Due to the rich brown tones, I think the images were made with either the carbon print or the Woodburytype process. The Woodburytype (invented in 1864) seems more likely because it was a photomechanical process, not purely photographic. To reproduce a true photograph onto a book page back then would have led to a great loss of definition and tone. Woodburytypes also had to be "tipped in" to books, not printed onto a page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_print

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodburytype

http://www.graphicsatlas.org/identification/?process_id=38

http://www.graphicsatlas.org/identification/?process_id=316

 

@bosko69 - please tell us where you found this particular example of the book (auction listing, ebay, other?). Other versions I have found online do not reproduce the photos so clearly.

 

I simply meant that posed photos can often be stylized/idealized.

 

You're right, of course. And typical of the era.

Debora

 

2MB-It may have been this 'Spitalfields Life' blog-
https://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/03/28/john-thomsons-street-life-in-london/