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and tree studies. Many of his views were published in
early photographically illustrated books and as stereo
cards.
He made up to four trips to the Near and Middle East
in the 1860’s and 1870’s, producing whole-plate prints
and stereo views, many of the images being signed Good
or monogrammed FMG in the negative. His Middle
Eastern views were published by both Francis Frith
and W.A. Mansell & Co. Frith commissioned Good’s
fi rst trip to the Near East and later published his views
of Malta, taken during his return from Constantinople
and Egypt in the winter of 1871/2.He may have been
Frith’s assistant at one time.
Good’s output, particularly his Middle Eastern
work, is distinctive and of high technical and artistic
merit, especially when the diffi culties of working
with wet-collodion in remote areas is taken into
consideration. He has been generally overlooked as
a photographer.
Ian Sumner
GOODWIN, HANNIBAL (1822–1900)
American photographer and inventor
“His experiments culminated in 1887 in the invention of
the photographic fi lm. As a memorial to the inventor of
the device that has proved so potent for the instruction
and entertainment of mankind this tablet is erected.”
So reads the memorial tablet to Hannibal Goodwin, the
inventor of celluloid rollfi lm.
The Reverend Hannibal Goodwin, born in Tompkins
Country, New York, and an Episcopal rector in Newark,
New Jersey from the mid 1860s, turned to photography
as a means of illustrating the talks he gave to children
and local organisations. From 1867, until he retired from
church life in 1887, his illustrated talks were a regular
part of his Sunday Schools.
Using gelatin dry plates, he became interested in the
idea of reducing the weight of materials he had to carry
with him on location. His experiments led him to the
creation of a celluloid fi lm “especially in connection
with roller cameras” and he applied for a patent for it
in May 1887. For unexplained reasons—although some
writers hint at a sustained campaign of obstruction
by George Eastman—fi nal patent protection was not
given until 1898, by which time Eastman had already
introduced his own fl exible celluloid rollfi lm.
Goodwin was almost ready to go into production with
his roll fi lm when he was killed in a traffi c accident.
His business interests were sold to Anthony & Scovil
(Ansco), and courts eventually ruled that Eastman had
infringed his (rather loosely specifi ed) patents, resulting
in a multi-million dollar payout.
John Hannavy
GOUIN, ALEXIS-LOUIS-CHARLES-
ARTHUR (d. 1855)
French photographerGouin was supposedly born in New York at the end of
the 18th century. His exact birth date remains unknown
like the details about his parents and childhood. After
his arrival in Paris, he studied painting at the Fine Arts
Academy where he received the teaching of Jean-Bap-
tiste Regnault, admirer of Raphaël and creator of many
important historical paintings. Next, he worked in Anne-
Louis Girodet’s (1767–1824) studio, a pupil of David,
both neoclassical and romantic painter, who excelled in
lighting effects and in disrupting contemporary norms of
sexuality. The production choices and fi ne colourings of
Gouin’s negatives ilustrate this pictural legacy without
being a strict imitation.
Gouin assessed the value of this new medium, so,
such as attests the obituary published in the Humphrey’s
Journal, he was one of the fi rst to engage in photog-
raphy after the daguerreotype process became public
knowledge. However, his name only appeared in the
Bottin, the Parisian Business register in 1849 (at rue
Basse-du-rempart, 50). Working with his wife and his
daugther, Laure (the dates of his wedding and daughter’s
birth are unknown), who hand-coloured his photographs,
he met Bruno Braquehais, who was previously a lito-
grapher in Caen, around 1851. Gouin moved to rue
Louis-le-Grand, 37, and invited Braquehais to join his
studio (until 1852). The same year, he created a machine
for polishing daguerreotype plates—the photographer
Bertrand affi rmed at its subject that if he could do 150
plates per day, it was only thanks to the Alexis Gouin’s
remarkably fast machine—and a photometer, which was
a precision instrument that measured luminous fl ux and
intensity. He received a medal of honourable mention
for his coloured daguerreotypes at the London Exhibi-
tion. Nevertheless, his inventions were never mentioned.
In September however, his name appeared among the
souscriptors list to erect a memorial in remembrance of
the heliography inventors, Niepce and Daguerre.
Then he began producing stereoscopic daguerreotypes
of female nudes. Other photographers such as Belloc,
Derussy, D’Olivier, Duboscq-Soleil, Moulin and of
course Braquehais, also used this process to create women
Académies and erotic studies. These images were often
anonymous or secretly diffused because of the “good
taste” and the censorship that judged them too “natural”
or too “real,” the hand-coloured stereo nudes particularly.
But with this process, Gouin signed as well quite famous
portraits of several personalities of the period. Among
them, those of Camille Saint-Saëns, that Gouin presented
with some bright hair, a lively and inspired eye, a quill in
the right hand, and in the left, the Berlioz score “Lélio”
for which the french composer made the piano reduction.