799
mainly British views including stereo cards and lantern
slides—which also includes over 150 views of India.
Ian Leith
KINNEAR, CHARLES GEORGE HOOD
(1832–1894)
Schottish photographer and inventor
The Honourable C. G. H. Kinnear was active in photo-
graphic circles, particularly in Scotland, from the mid-
1850s until the early-1890s and was described as ‘the
inventor of the modern form of camera bellows’.
Kinnear was a founding member of the Photographic
Society of Scotland from 1856 until it was wound up in
1873 and held various offi ces with the Society including
Honorary Secretary from 1856–1860 and Vice President.
He was also a founder member of the Edinburgh Photo-
graphic Exchange Club from 1859 and, later, a member
of the Edinburgh Photographic Society. He exhibited
widely in Scotland. He published several articles in the
photographic press including reports of his photographic
travels and exhibited his work between 1856–1864.
His principal contribution was a design of camera
which he described in 1857. A report was published
in the Journal of the Photographic Society in February
- Kinnear’s camera had tapered bellows which al-
lowed each fold to collapse within the previous larger
fold when closed. The design was based on Captain
Fowkes’ camera which had straight bellows, but Kin-
near claimed his design was stronger and more suited
to travelling. It also cost about £4 or half the price of
the Fowkes camera which it quickly superseded. The
original camera was for 12½ × 10½ inch paper nega-
tives and was built for Kinnear by Bell of Potterrow,
Edinburgh. The camera was 15½ × 13 × 3½ inches when
closed and weighed 13lbs. The design was taken up by
the principal London camera makers such as Ottewill,
Bland & Co, Rouch and Meagher and Improved Kinnear
cameras were advertised from the early 1860s.
Kinnear’s original design was a little awkward
with the back section needing to be screwed on to the
baseboard and the lens board required mounting on
to the front standard. Camera makers improved and
adapted the basic design while keeping the innovative
bellows arrangement. Over time the means of focus-
ing was changed from an endless rod screw from the
camera’s back to a side-turned rack and pinion and
refi nements such as swing-backs, rising fronts and
reversible and fi xed backs were added. The refi ned
design, principally through the work of McKellen in
the 1880s, became the de facto standard plate camera
until the early twentieth century. Kinnear died aged 63
on 5 November 1894.
Michael Pritchard
KINSEY, DARIUS REYNOLD (1869–1945)
American photographerDarius Reynold Kinsey was born on July 23, 1869, in
Maryville, Missouri. In 1889 he and his family moved
to Snoqualmie, Washington Territory. After learning
photography from a Mrs. Spalding in Seattle around
1890, Darius spent fi ve years photographing for the
Seattle and Lake Shore Railroad Company. He formed
a brief partnership with his brother Clark, but Clark and
another brother Clarence moved to the Yukon Territory,
Canada, during the Klondike Gold Rush, forming the
Kinsey & Kinsey photography business in Grand Forks.
Married in 1896, Darius’ wife Tabitha (d. 1963) worked
in the darkroom. Their fi rst studio, opened in 1897, was
in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. In 1906 they relocated
to Seattle and Darius gave up portrait work, devoting
himself over the next three decades to photographing
logging activities in the Pacifi c Northwest, a passion
shared by his brother and competitor Clark between
1913 and 1945. Darius worked with stereoscopic, pan-
oramic, and large format cameras, including a 20 × 24
inch camera. Only an injury at age 71 stopped his career.
The Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham,
Washington, acquired the Darius Kinsey collection (over
4,700 negatives and several hundred prints) in January- The University of Washington also holds 151
Darius Kinsey prints, along with his brother Clark’s
negative collection.
David Mattison
KIRCHNER, JOHANNA FREDERIKA
DORIS (EMMA) (1830–1909)
European photographer and studio ownerEmma Kirchner was one of the few female European
photographers of the 19th century. A portrait made
around 1855 by the fi rst female daguerreotypist of Ger-
many, Bertha Wehnert-Beckmann (Leipzig 1815–1901),
discovered in 2004, showed a young Emma Kirchner.
It only proved that they knew each other, but doesn’t
prove that Kirchner was her pupil. The proof that Kirch-
ner already worked as a photographer in Leipzig, was
shown at the back of her oldest picture made after her
arrival in Holland which marks “Emma Kirchner—Zuid-
erstraat.”
After the death of her father, Emma’s mother took
care of the tailor shop he left her and Emma, not yet
three years old and baby Maria. Mother and daughter
Emma ran the shop with very little help.
Kirchner never married but had daughter Dorice with
the Leipzig Publisher Rudolph Loës and two daughters
(one of whom died after a few days) with Commission-
aire Carl August Bretschneider.