166
BLACKMORE, WILLIAM (1827–1878)
William Blackmore was born in Salisbury, England in
- Having trained as a lawyer, he moved to Liverpool
in 1848 and joined a fi rm of solicitors. He prospered and
by the 1860s was one of the leading fi gures in the busi-
ness of land grants in the American West, specifi cally
in Colorado and New Mexico.
Blackmore had been interested in Native Americans
since his teenage years and believed that photography
was the best medium for recording the rapidly vanishing
Native American communities and set about creating an
archive of such images. He purchased photographs and
commissioned photographers, both to copy photographs
or to photograph Native Americans in their natural habi-
tats or when their leaders visited Washington D.C. as
part of delegations. Blackmore also published two sets
of photographs of North American natives.
The work of some twenty-eight photographers
were to be found in Blackmore’s photographic collec-
tion. These included Antonio Zeno Shindler (d.1899),
Alexander Gardner (1821–1882), William Henry
Jackson (1843–1942), and Dr. William Abraham Bell
(1841–1920).
In 1867 Blackmore’s photographs were copied by
Antonio Shindler to help prepare the catalogue for the
Smithsonian Institutions fi rst photographic exhibition in
1869, Photographic Portraits of North American Indians
in the Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1872 the
Smithsonian established a relationship with Blackmore
to assist his project.
Blackmore’s business ventures failed in the 1870s
and he committed suicide in 1878. His collection, held
in Salisbury after his death, was dispersed from the
1930s. The British Museum now holds Blackmore’s
core photographic albums of some 2000 images.
Anthony Hamber
BLAIR, THOMAS HENRY (1855–1919)
Canadian photographer
Canadian-born Thomas Henry Blair arrived in America
in 1873 from Nova Scotia, to earn his living as an itiner-
ant tintype photographer.
He took up the already obsolescent wet collodion
process, and fi led a patent for the Tourograph camera
in 1878, which folded into a box for carrying, and when
assembled for use combined a camera with a small
darktent for the preparation and processing of the plates.
The camera was made for him by the American Optical
Company, a division of the Scovill company.
The Blair Tourograph and Dry Plate Company, was
established in 1881. With facilities in Boston, New York,
Cincinnati and San Francisco, the company advertised
that “Photography with Blair’s Cameras becomes a
Delightful Pastime.” The Boston Detective Camera of
1884, and the Lucidograph of 1885 were just two of
their successful designs.
Blair shortened the company name to the Blair
Camera Company in 1886, but within a few years his
interest in fl exible fi lm took him back into materials
manufacture eventually becoming a major manufac-
turer of celluloid fi lm in the 1890s, and also of roll-fi lm
holders and cameras—in direct competition to George
Eastman. Blair’s 100-exposure Kamaret camera was a
direct rival to the Kodak, and the two companies were
on a collision course.
Ousted from the management of his own company,
Blair moved to Britain and established the European
Blair Camera Company in London.
In America, the original Blair company was sold to
Eastman in 1900, becoming the ‘Blair Camera Division
of Eastman Kodak.’
John HannavyBLANCHARD, VALENTINE
(1831–1901)
Valentine Blanchard fi rst exhibited at the Dublin In-
ternational Exhibition of 1865, at which time he had a
studio in London’s Camden Town, having previously
briefl y been based in the Strand in the late 1850s.
By 1862, he had developed a technique for achiev-
ing very short exposures with his stereoscopic camera,
producing popular instantaneous images of the bustle of
London street life. Throughout the decade, his catalogue
of stereoscopic cards was extended, covering every area
of London.
An explosion at his Camden studio in 1870, probably
caused by guncotton igniting, necessitated relocation,
and he is listed at an address in Piccadilly from 1871
until 1875, thereafter at 289 Regent Street, the address
on many of his surviving portraits.
Blanchard was a prolifi c writer on photography,
contributing articles and opinions from 1860, and
consolidating his reputation. In his book The Silver
Sunbeam, published in 1863. John Towler refers to his
formula for bromo-iodised collodion. By the 1870s,
it was his portraiture rather than his urban landscapes
which were being widely praised, with particular
recognition being accorded to his control of diffuse
lighting, and his use of a soft-focus lens.
After closing his London studios, he was elected a
member of the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring’s fi rst
meeting in 1892, and exhibited widely for much of the
remainder of his life.
John Hannavy