Photo forensics – teasing out the details

Then I located Margaret’s copy of the book itself in Canna House.

A favourite picture from the collections is this one of Màiri Macrae holding a large cod fish outside Taigh Màiri Anndra (her croft house) in North Glendale, South Uist.

All we know about this image is: a) it’s Màiri Macrae, b) the location, and c) that it has the cats, Fluffy, Wicked Willie and Finlay in it. There’s no date in catalogue, although we know that Margaret lived with Màiri and her sister Peigi between 1929 and 1935.

I remembered that when I first came to Canna House in 2015, I had come across a little artefact in Margaret’s personal effects and wondered if it might be useful so I made a note about it and kept it for later use ...

This is a Wellcome Exposure Calculator, a form of diary for photographers, including an original card exposure ‘wheel’ meter.

This little book has various tables and information, which we tend not to have to worry about in these days of digital photography. The wheel is a tool to help set up the camera correctly and would help to create a well-exposed image. This little book would have been an invaluable tool for Margaret in the 1930s, helping her to calculate shutter speeds and aperture ranges, bearing in mind the lack of electricity for good indoor light for camera work.

In Margaret’s calculator, I was able to tell the exact time the image was taken, the light range, and the exposure range used. So we now know this image was taken on 11 May 1932 at 10.40am, along with the light, stop and exposure settings. Description of image? ‘Màiri & cats with cod’. Even the likely weather conditions that day – ‘Bright sun’!

It adds so much to the image, being able to visualise the space, time and place of its setting.

Tapping into the knowledge of others is also an important way of both engaging with ‘audiences’ and making sure that the information you record is as authentic as it can be.

This is especially important, perhaps, when the subject matter or location looks to be completely out of your own area of expertise. I’ve recently been spending time documenting information on images which Margaret took on holiday, away from Scotland in the mid-20th century. The Campbells took a tour of Europe after the war years and there are lots of images with little or no information attached. Here’s one of two battleships somewhere in Europe – no information in the catalogue other than ‘Italy, France, Greece, Corsica or Cyprus’.

It was a process of elimination and my own travelling knowledge of Europe to narrow this one down. The number 853 led me to finding the name of one of the ships – the US Navy destroyer, USS Charles H. Roan. The other ship, an R21 C Class destroyer, was HMS Chivalrous. From internet research, we know that this ship was commissioned in 1945 and was then sold to the US in 1954, but in this image it still belongs to the Royal Navy. She was in service in the Mediterranean from 1947 onwards. Researching ports used for naval purposes post-war and looking at the large church building to the right (the Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas) led me to discover that this is Piraeus harbour, Greece.

I then searched through John Lorne Campbell’s diaries for 1947–54 and found out that he and Margaret undertook an extensive European tour in 1948. This was borne out by letters I found indicating that John was going to visit various folklorists when he was ‘coming to Greece’. When I posted the image on social media, as a means of involving the ‘Internet Hive’ to glean any other further information, comments helped to flesh out the details, including the fact that the bunting on the ships indicated they were dressed for a courtesy visit to a friendly port.

Here’s a favourite image of mine, taken in the mid-1920s.

This delightful image of a hand-pushed adult perambulator has no information at all in the catalogue. What do we know about it just by looking?

• Fashions indicate 1920s
• Impressive building
• Looks coastal

It was out with the magnifier for this one. I didn’t recognise any of the people in the image so I looked at the surroundings. Its position in the catalogue, along with a neighbouring one obviously taken at the same time, placed it most likely in North America.

After a little enhancement of the image, and using a magnifier, I was able to make out that the lower building to the right-hand side had what looked like a neon sign saying ‘Brunswick Panatrope’.

After a little enhancement of the image, and using a magnifier, I was able to make out that the lower building to the right-hand side had what looked like a neon sign saying ‘Brunswick Panatrope’.

The signage was placed on the Panatrope showroom, in front of the Traymore Hotel, the large building with the imposing towers. The boardwalk became known as the ‘Rolling Chair Parade’.

So, although we know the rough date and the exact location – with an fascinating story attached to it – we don’t yet know the names of the people in the images. But I hope that I might eventually find these in the diaries at Canna House.

I wonder if Margaret was drawn to Atlantic City in 1928 to try out one of the first commercial recording machines. Was this the beginning of her intention to return to Scotland and start taking down and recording the Gaelic songs she had heard in Scotland already?

It’s fascinating to be able to find out more from photographs which have little information attached to them, sometimes just by thinking ‘out of the box’ but also by using personal knowledge or experience, trial and error, Google and ancestry tools. I enjoy it so much that I now do it for fun. I get great personal satisfaction when I’m able to further enhance the cultural jigsaw that is the Canna Collections, just by spending a little time, pulling together all the elements of the Canna Archives – and putting myself into Margaret or John’s shoes!