Amateur Photographer - UK (2019-07-27)

subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 27 July 2019 7

Honouring a Victorian

travel photographer

BACK in 2017, we

ran a feature on the

Scottish Victorian travel

and social documentary

photographer John

Thomson (1837-1921),

who was the fi rst person to

photograph Angkor Wat;

he also took stunning

images of China’s Qing

Dynasty. We reported at

the time that a Just Giving

campaign was under way

to restore Thomson’s

neglected grave in

Streatham Cemetery,

London, and the reerection

of the headstone took

place on 13 July this year.

AP’s deputy editor Geoff

Harris, a member of

the grave restoration

committee, attended the

ceremony along with

Thomson’s descendants

and other committee

members, including

Michael Pritchard from the

RPS, Asian photography

expert Terry Bennett,

Jamie Carstairs from

Bristol University, and

curator Betty Yao MBE.

Betty, who organised

the 2017 exhibition and

helped published several

books on Thomson, has

worked tirelessly to restore

his profi le. As she explains,

the process of sorting out

the grave was nearly as

challenging as Thomson’s

epic journeys.

‘Until 2017 we had no

idea where the grave was,

as the family wasn’t sure. It

was Terry Bennett who

located it in the cemetery

after a lot of research. It

was in a sorry state.’

Making a new headstone

would have been expensive

and complicated, but

after a lot of bureaucratic

wrangling and enlisting the

support of the Friends

of Streatham Cemetery,

Betty found a way to get

the stone repaired at a

reasonable cost. ‘After

the book and exhibition, I

thought it was the least we

could do to clean up the

grave,’ she explains. The

plot is at Lot 545, Block F.

See Thomson’s images

at wellcomecollection.org/

works?query=John

Thomson.

For the latest newsvisit http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

© JAMIE CARSTAIRS

The restoration committee, along with Thomson’s

descendants and well wishers, at the new headstone

A REPORT on the state of the digital camera

market in 2018 published by the Nikkei,

Japan’s biggest business news organization,

reveals times are still tough in the industry.

Compared to 2017, the total sales volume for

digital cameras plunged by 22%, but some

makers will be having modest celebrations

following the report. Canon increased its

market share to 40.5%, up 3.9% from

2017, and Fujifi lm’s share is now up to

5.15%. Olympus’s share also inched up to

2.8%. That’s the good news. However, Nikon’s

share fell to 19.1%, and Sony was down to 17.7%.

Top fi ve camera makers under pressure

Some good news for

Canon, which has invested

in full-frame mirrorless

Back in the day

A wander through the AP archive.

This week we pay a visit to July 1964

This was a great piece on processing colour film at home

LET’S get the ‘what a lot of balls’ gags out of the way

fi rst, as this holiday-tastic cover from 22 July 1964

has a lot of period charm. Hipsters and Instagram

‘infl uencers’ would kill for the wonderful look of

professionally developed colour fi lm from this era,

and we could look at this cover all day. As the major

feature on fi lm processing inside the issue explains,

it was not a process for the impatient or easily

discouraged, and it is a salutary reminder of how

spoiled we are today, with instant high-resolution

colour imagery available on our phones. By 1964, a

large percentage of the UK population owned some

kind of camera, but colour processing, particularly

processing at home, was still not that common.

‘Possibly the one thing that deters the amateur from

turning to colour is the cost of professional processing.’

Fortunately, our predecessors did a great job of

explaining the process and suggested how costs could

be reduced. Rather less seriously, the editor then digs

himself a hole in his introductory letter by getting into

a discussion about ‘topless swim suits’. Ooh, matron!

1964