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Two of my favourite photographs in the Centre for Research Collections come from The University of Edinburghs copy of William Henry Fox Talbot’s “The Pencil of Nature“. Shelfmark Df.3.85 .The book also contains an exceptional capital letter T complete with small dragon like creature with a vine like tongue. As can be seen below.
The two images that impress from the book are minimal images that to me feel very modern but have a profound sense of the time they were created through the use of the calotype technique. However i think these images create a wonderful time portal and makes us think of now as well as one hundred and seventy years ago when they were created. I have included whole and detailed views of both of the photographs. Further images from the book can be found here.
Having a background in Fine Art through study at Glasgow School of Art I am very aware of the striking visual content that passes through the Digital Imaging Unit on a daily basis. Of particular interest to me over the years of working with rare books is Colophon and Logotype. “This originated in Renaissance printing shops, where a title page would feature the printer’s mark (colophon) near the bottom of the page, usually above the printer’s name and city.” This early form of branding is fascinating in its use of imagery and the expert hand skills used to convey a meaningful message. The tree of knowledge is a popular symbol often appearing with broken branches. The level of thought over the imagery and the care taken over the execution is a remarkable investment in brand and product. The Colophon was eventually replaced by printers statements in a more legal and business like text form. Colophon have begun to re-appear for websites and online content publishing, this is a nice nod of the head over centuries of time to the continuation of a craft persons expertise and skill set.
As photographers for the Special Collections in the University of Edinburgh Main Library, we’ve seen a fair amount of beautiful books and manuscripts, but the diversity of the collections, both here at the Library and from other locations around the University always surprises me. Many of these have been bought to us for photography over the years, and on occasion, we have had to decamp from the studio and go out to the collection. In 2012 we were asked to go to St Cecilia’s Hall to take photographs for a Calendar to promote the redevelopment project, then in its infancy. We had a fantastic week photographing harpsichords, guitars and lutes in the 18th Century Hall to place them within their context. The instruments provided us with many challenges: harpsichords are not the easiest to light to bring out the gold details and elaborate painting – particularly not in a room with mixed light sources and green walls. In one shot taken by my colleague, Malcolm Brown, we were asked to show the whole object as if looking from above. Thankfully, the curator allowed us to turn the instrument on its side, although we sometimes tell people who ask us how it was done that we had Malcolm suspended from the ceiling Mission Impossible style to take the photo. Further information about St Cecilia’s can be found at http://www.stcecilias.ed.ac.uk/about.html
Another highlight for us was the visit to the Anatomy museum to photograph the murderer William Burke’s Skeleton (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders). On arrival at the museum we discovered that there was major building work going on outside and the drilling was causing vibrations through the floor. At the time we were working with a Hasselblad multishot which took 16 shots to build up a very high resolution image so the slightest movement would ruin the shot. We had to try to shoot in the lulls between drilling- the challenges of location photography!
We were also lucky enough to photograph the magnificent Renaissance Giambologna bronze Ecorche horse. Having decided that we wanted the photographs to be low key, dark images to bring out every muscle ripple and vein, we had to carefully light the cast so that it was distinct from the background. This required reflectors to be suspended from the ceiling to run a highlight up the neck and others to be held in place during the shots, a real team effort.
3 dimensional objects always require more thought to the lighting to bring out subtle textures and details as you can see in this image of a Gandharan Sculpture, whereas the challenge of metallic surfaces is to hide unwanted reflections.
It is always exciting to photograph these wonderful objects that have made their way into the University collections, and recently we have even seen some ‘Book Sculptures’ too.
Fascinating book of the month requested for digitisation in the DIU goes to Thomas Greens “The Universal Herbal; or, botanical, medical, and agricultural dictionary. Containing an account of all the known plants in the world, arranged according to the Linnean system. With the best methods of propagation, and the most recent agricultural improvements.” The book is lyrically illustrated with basic but pragmatic hand colouring befitting it’s dictionary status. However it is a visually delicious looking two volume set with some unusual and intriguing entries as can be seen below. Broad-leaved Bastard Parsley is certainly a new one to me.
Last year the Salvesen Collection, which has been in the possession of the University since 1969, was given permission to make the images publically available online for the first time. The collection description tells us that ‘the history of the firm of Christian Salvesen goes back to 1851 when Christian Salvesen arrived in Leith and set up in business as a ship owner and broker. Two years later he joined the Edinburgh merchant George Vair Turnbull, continuing in partnership with him until he went solo in 1872. Three of his sons, Thomas, Frederick and Theodor (http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/we94g6) joined him in the business; the fourth, Edward, preferred a legal career which began with a law degree from the University of Edinburgh, and which culminated in his elevation to the College of Justice and the Bench as The Hon. Lord Salvesen (1857-1942)’.
Our collection of photographs and papers is largely about the company’s whaling concerns in South Georgia. So far only a small proportion of the photographs have been digitised- around 192, however they cover a wide range from landscapes and wildlife to the people and life at the Leith Harbour base in South Georgia .
From the light hearted shots of sledging http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/c6e03o and football http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/bs1r73 (I love that this photo came from an envelope entitled ‘Penguins and Social Life’), to coping with the extreme weather encountered only a little to the north of Antarctica. While some of the snow fall photos have an element of humour to them, like “The Old Powerhouse surrounded in 6″ of snow, had to be removed to fire the chimney, Dec 10/12/18” – remember that December is summer for South Georgia http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/56h599 .
Others are far more shocking. The season of 1929-30 appears to have been one of the worst- an old news clipping shows the damage to one of the giant vats in the harbour, a note with the photo reads “Power of the Wind. Oil tank in Leith Harbour pressed together by the wind. I saw it happen” http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/rm184k . In the same season an avalanche hit the base with devastating consequences. This blurred and grainy photograph shows the wreckage of the Foundry http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/zysa4o and the next reveals the human cost http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/f8akdg
Throughout it all they documented their lives, challenges and environment. Although whaling has thankfully had its day, I’m glad they have left this wonderful resource for us all http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/5dhlh7
For many years the Digital Imaging Unit have been the primary photographers for The Piper Magazine. The Piper is The Friends of Edinburgh University Library twice-yearly illustrated newsletter. The DIU enjoy the challenge of photographing a diverse range of fascinating material that comes our way for the magazine. This has included the friends purchase of Holinshed’s Chronicles on one occasion and this new edition demonstrates particularly good marriage between the layout design of Mark Blackadder and the photography of DIU photographer Susan Pettigrew.
It would be a terrific resource to have the previous issues of The Piper made available as pdf downloads from The Friends website. The current exhibition in the Main Library celebrates Fifty Years, Fifty Books: purchases by the Friends of Edinburgh University Library, 1962-2012 Exhibition Gallery, Main Library, George Square 28 March to 14 June 2014. The exhibition is well worth a look and illuminating as usual. The DIU also photograph all exhibition openings in the Library. Below are some images from the 50/50 opening night.
Images created by the Digital Imaging Unit feature in a new exhibit outside the Dugald Stewart Building in Bristo square. It is fantastic to see how well our images respond to being enlarged many times beyond the original object size. It justifies our workflow of capture once at high quality re-purpose many times. Indeed these images were created at various times and were pulled together from our online resource for this exhibit. This exhibit also makes us keenly aware of the importance of our colour management workflow. We use hardware to colour calibrate our monitors after every 200 hours of use and it pays off when you see the images in an unusual format greatly enlarged and in broad daylight.
Maybe it is this lovely spring weather that has got me thinking about the wonderful books on Natural History in our Collections. Perhaps the most notable of which is The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, Vol.II, 1846 by John James Audubon. Famed for his fine artistry, life-like poses and inclusion of habitats, this naturalist was regularly quoted by such towering figures as Darwin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon
One original we have completed in its entirety is the book by Edinburgh’s own James Wilson, Illustrations of Zoology. Surely this is the next candidate to be converted into the book reader format? Here you can see ‘The Great White Dolphin’ (Beluga) drawn by Patrick Syme and engraved by W.H. Lizars. James Wilson tells us that ‘For three months in 1815 a White Whale was observed to inhabit the Firth (‘Frith’) of Forth’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wilson_%28zoologist%29
Last week we were very pleased to make 864 new images available to the public. In the DIU we had recently completed a batch of nearly 1000 high quality images from Readers Orders and Staff requests, so we handed these over to Library Digital Development Team to upload into LUNA http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/ . Of the images that could be made available to the public…
372 Images were added to the Western Medieval Manuscripts Collection
196 Images were added to the CRC Gallimaufry Collection
162 Images were added to the New College Collection
54 Images were added to the Roslin Institute Collection
11 Images were added to the Architectural Drawings Collection
10 Images were added to the Salvesen Collection
10 Images were added to the University of Edinburgh Collection and
8 Images were added to the Incunabula Collection
However, we are perhaps most excited to announce the new collection of ECA Rare Books http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/j8mxaj . Elizabeth Quarmby Lawrence has been very busy cataloguing these books (see our earlier post http://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/diu/2013/10/16/gems-from-the-eca-rare-books-collection/ ) and tells us that the “Rare Books Collection of Edinburgh College of Art, includes about 1,500 items, which date from before 1489 to the twentieth century. Most of them are printed books; many of them are illustrated. It is particularly strong in books of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on architecture, design and ornament. There are also nineteenth-century photographs, examples of textile design, and early nineteenth-century hand-painted designs for Edinburgh Shawls. Many of the books originated in the collections of the institutions which preceded ECA: the drawing academy of the Board of Trustees for Manufactures in Scotland, and the School of Applied Art. This collection is now housed in the Centre for Research Collections in the Main Library”.
Making new images available requires a real team effort, and I’d like to say a special thanks to Deputy Photographer Malcolm Brown, Scott Renton & all the Library Digital Development Team, and of course Elizabeth Quarmby Lawrence for all the metadata!
The Centre for Research Collections is a remarkable resource for students at Edinburgh University, not only for research purposes, but also for experience working with collections.I am an MSc student studying Material Cultures and the History of the Book.As part of the course we were encouraged to volunteer within the CRC.My interests lie in the field of the visual arts and the materiality of books, specifically the in the world of digital media.Serena Fredrick at the CRC was able to match me up with the Digital Imaging Unit and within the DIU I have been researching and enhancing the metadata for one of the university’s photographic image collections: the Hill and Adamson Collection.Hill and Adamson are world-renowned pioneers of early photographic techniques.Building on the work of Englishman Henry Fox-Talbot, they created some iconic images of mid-nineteenth century Edinburgh from their studio on Calton Hill.
Hill and Adamson’s original creative remit was to capture portraits of leading members of the Free Church of Scotland who had been involved in the disruption of the established Church of Scotland in 1843, with the intent of using these portraits as study aids for a massive painting commemorating the disruption.
Soon word of this new means of portraiture spread and Hill and Adamson started creating images of and for Edinburgh society. The collection is full of images of friends and family of Hill and Adamson, as well as being a veritable who’s who in Edinburgh.
Hill and Adamson realised that this artform could also be used as a form of documentary reporting and began taking photographs of the Newhaven fishermen and women, as evidence of a strong, united and self-sufficient community.
Unfortunately Hill and Adamson’s collaboration was short-lived due to Adamson’s continually failing health and eventual death at the age of only 27 in 1848. However, during their prolific partnership they were responsible for the creation of thousands of incredible images. I have loved being a part of the team bringing this collection onto a digital platform and increasing access to such an important and exciting set of images. Here are a few of my favourite images, all of which can be found at: http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/UoEcar~4~4
Caroline Ramsay, MSc Material Cultures and the History of the Book
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