How do we identify one transparent film support from another more dangerous one? This was a challenge posed to staff working with the Spencer Digby / Ronald D Woolf Collection of photographic negatives. Conservator Photography Caroline Garratt describes the issues they face and the technology that helps them.Read more
The internet’s primary function as a repository for cat pictures is well established, but what about our pre-digital cat photos? Doesn’t the world deserve to see them as well? Imaging Technician Ish Doney describes the housing of the Digby/Woolf photographs collection and uses the opportunity to share some favourites.Read more
Film photography and negatives have had a bit of a resurgence lately but they were once the only way to get pictures made. A large part of our current project digitising the Spencer Digby / Ronald D Woolf Collection is processing around 250,000 photographic negatives. But how does a photo negative get from our storerooms onto Collections Online? Imaging Technician Cat Watters tells us about part of their role in the digitising project team.Read more
Last year, Te Papa received a grant from Lotteries NZ towards the digitisation of the Spencer Digby / Ronald D Woolf Collection of around 250,000 photographic negatives shot between the 1930s and 1980s. The project is now well underway, with the first ‘drop’ of around 800 images just released on Collections Online. Athol McCredie, Curator Photography and Melissa Irving, Senior Imaging Technician tell us about the project.Read more
Summer scholar Caitlin Lynch has taken a particular interest in a 19th-century portrait of New Zealand wars soldier Frederick Rowan that we knew very little about. Caitlin describes how a breakthrough clue, in the form of an ornate chair, led to the intriguing story of the solider’s facial disfiguration and reconstruction.Read more
Happy Halloween! Curator Historical Photography Lissa Mitchell gets into the spirit of the occasion with a selection of frightfully fantastic photographs where not all is as it seems.Read more
Curator Photography Athol McCredie takes inspiration from a set of photographs in our collection to explore the idea that there may be another version of you, dear reader, out there.Read more
Lissa Mitchell, Curator Historical Photography uses her detective skills to uncover the full story behind a late-1880s photograph.Read more
This photograph below was lost the moment it was taken in 1929 or 1930. Mary Sporle, known as Dolly, proudly showed off her son Leslie for the camera at Wellington’s Berry & Co. studio with the intention of giving his grandparents a photograph of him. But her family believes she never returned toRead more
This family portrait from the turn of last century is a remarkable and striking statement about family and identity.Read more
I’ve said in a previous blog post that Blenheim photographer William Macey’s cabinet cards elevated the format to an art form. So I thought I had better demonstrate my point by putting together a blog of some of his best studio portraits from those in Te Papa’s photography collection. What IRead more
There is so much to admire about this beautiful ambrotype recently acquired for Te Papa’s photography collection – look at the couple’s cheeks touched up by hand in pink, their jewellery and clothing. I also like that the couple are posed in front of the photographer’s studio interior wall fitted with a dado rail (centre behindRead more
I am quite fond of some of the new photographs in the collection which are a set of cabinet card format studio portraits from the late nineteenth century. Many of them were taken by photographers working in the South Island in places such as Lyttelton, Ashburton, Gore and Blenheim. I’mRead more
I don’t much like having my portrait taken. The longer the process goes on, and the more expectant I am of a good result, the worse it seems to get. So how much do you have to know about being photographed to get a good portrait? How many times do youRead more
A selection of photographs of girls taken in New Zealand during the nineteenth century from Te Papa’s photography collection in honour of International Girl Day. Most of the photographs featured are carte-de-visite cards and are not much bigger than they appear in this blog. All the girls in these photographs wereRead more
