Marking time

The mystery explained

2013-06-06T16:26:40+10:00

On one occasion, whilst examining the machinery of the monster revolving lamp belonging to a lighthouse, a visitor, wishing to see how many seconds would elapse before it completed a revolution, took a half-crown from his pocket, and placed it on the revolving framework.
Watch in hand, he patiently waited for the coin to come round again to where he was standing, but no half-crown appeared. The seconds lengthened out into minutes—still no half-crown.
"Strange!" he exclaimed. "What can be the reason of it?"
In order to find out, he walked to the other side of the lamp, and met one of the lighthouse men, who touched his cap and said respectfully,
"Thank you, sir."

[from the Rockhampton newspaper The Capricornian, 14 December 1907.]

Advice to doorknocking politicians

2013-05-19T22:49:15+10:00

Social media, 19th century style: This article in the South Australian Weekly Chronicle for 16 July 1859 shows that using the latest technology for electioneering is no new thing.

TO MEMBERS ABOUT TO VISIT THEIR CONSTITUENTS.

A member can pay a visit now to his constituents either in person or in the more elegant form of a visiting card, that not merely contains his electioneering address, but also his name and physiognomy in full. This is a new feature, that has never yet been put on the canvass of an election. For instance, we are informed by an advertisement that—

"Messrs. A. Marion & Co. think it will be of great advantage to candidates who cannot possibly wait personally upon all their constituents to use their Photographic Visiting Cards, which will prove a great saving of both time and trouble in canvassing. They will also afford the electors an opportunity of having a correct portrait of the hon. gentleman seeking their suffrages."

In this way are likenesses brought home to every man's door. What a boon, too, conferred on those delinquent M.P.s, who, conscious of having voted wrong, hav'nt the courage to face their constituents in any other form than that of photography. If they are not gifted with the call of eloquence, such a visit saves them an infinity of stuttering and stammering ; and yet, the little they so say is spoken strictly by the card, and must go home, if left at the right house. The boon would be further increased if Messrs. Marion would take off the entire supporters of Lord Derby, and take them off so effectually, that we should never see them again.

John Deazeley's backdrop

2013-05-18T14:24:22+10:00

Here's an object that tickles my interest in three branches of history—photography, lighthouses, and the region where I live.

It's a cabinet photograph made in the 1880s by John Deazeley, a photographer with a studio in Queen Street, Brisbane. Queen Street was, and still is, the main commercial street in the city. Three other Brisbane photographers had Queen Street studios then—Thomas Mathewson, Albert Lomer, and Eddie Hutchison.

Heritage impact assessment lah

2013-05-08T22:33:12+10:00

Here's a sequel to my post about heritage impact reports. Dr Lee Lik Meng, Associate Professor of planning at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, took part in Donald Ellsmore's workshop and wrote about the experience on his blog.

Fingerspitzengefühl

2013-05-05T14:33:20+10:00

I found this delightful German word in Oliver Reichenstein’s fine piece Learning to see. He writes about design that combines functional and aesthetic value—You don't get there with cosmetics, you get there by taking care of the details, by polishing and refining what you have. This is ultimately a matter of trained taste, or what German speakers call “Fingerspitzengefühl” (literally, “finger-tip-feeling”). He adds a photo of Jan Tschichold to illustrate.

More about the woodburytype

2013-04-24T12:57:56+10:00

To add to my terse mention of the woodburytype the other day, I bring you a paragraph of text, and a video.

The paragraph is from Richard Benson’s book The printed picture [New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008]:

The woodburytype plate was hard to make, but once done it could generate a lot of inexpensive prints. They curled terribly and the borders were always a mess, from the excess gelatin squeezing out, so they were always mounted. The woodburytype used no silver, which saved money, and it could produce monochromatic prints in any color, according to the pigment used. The prints were also never wet, so all the complex handling of wet paper was avoided. Most of them were colored to imitate albumen prints, so the viewers believed they were seeing a “real” photograph. The technology didn’t allow prints much bigger than eight by ten inches [20 x 25 cm], but these beautiful little prints never had to go into a hypo bath so they are remarkably permanent.

This video from George Eastman House shows the woodburytype printing process in action:

Pricing timber

2013-04-18T15:24:36+10:00

I have scanned a pair of timber price lists from my collection. See the PDFs here. They were produced in the 1930s by timber merchants in Queensland and New South Wales. They allow some interesting comparisons.

Zen raking

2013-04-12T12:36:43+10:00

First thing in the morning. I'm on the verandah of the Assistant Lightkeeper’s quarters. I can hear waves lapping the shore, sea birds calling, the wind in the palm fronts. At a distance, just audible, repeated strokes of a rake on sand.

Heritage impact reports

2013-03-20T17:10:13+10:00

My colleague Donald Ellsmore asked me if I had ever seen a half decent heritage impact assessment in 10 pages or less.

I replied: I favour reports that are as short as possible (but as long as necessary...). The length needs to vary with the complexity of the issues and the nature of the other consultants' reports in the development application. I am used to writing impact reports that go alongside stuff prepared by design architects and by town planners (who never learned brevity, or have since forgotten about it).

Olga Nethersole woodburytype zoomified

2013-03-19T12:02:39+10:00

Let me decode that headline:

Olga Nethersole (1867-1951) was an actress and a celebrity in England and America. She is a perfect subject to demonstrate the woodburytype.

Woodburytype was a process for printing high quality black and white photographs, used from the late 1860s until about 1900. This Woodburytype print of Olga makes a fine test for zoomify

Zoomify is software for zooming and panning website images.

What you can do with your comments

2013-03-14T11:28:41+10:00

Please comment on anything you find (or don’t find) on this website, by email, phone or letter—it’s easy enough to contact me. I’ll be pleased to hear from you, and I am very likely to reply. It could be the start of a rewarding conversation.

Website revamped

2013-03-11T11:07:05+10:00

I resolved to finish an overhaul of this website during 2012. The program slipped a little, but yesterday I asked my web host to change the DNS settings to point to the new site. Last night I went to bed quite late, satisfied that everything was working properly.

I woke early this morning and found that everything had gone bung—the website had turned into an Account Suspended page and my email accounts were inaccessible. Let's just say that I was disappointed. But it's all sorted out now, with a gracious apology from the host.

Draft Dent Island plan released

2013-03-06T12:53:13+10:00

The draft Dent Island Lightstation heritage management plan is now available for download. The period for public comments ends on 3 April 2013. I was commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, to complete this joint plan.

A lighthouse keeper's life

2013-03-01T10:54:02+10:00

The National Museums Scotland website has a fine online exhibition—Shining lights: the story of Scotland's lighthouses—where I found this video of interviews with lightkeepers:

This predilection for sea idiom

2013-02-11T12:25:22+10:00

This predeliction [sic] for sea idiom is assuredly proper in a maritime people, especially as many of the phrases are at once graphic, terse, and perspicuous. How could the whereabouts of an aching tooth be better pointed out to an operative dentist than Jack's "’Tis the aftermost grinder aloft, on the starboard quarter."* The ship expressions preserve many British and Anglo-Saxon words, with their quaint old preterites and telling colloquialisms; and such may require explanation, as well for the youthful aspirant as for the cocoa-nut-headed prelector in nautic lore. It is indeed remarkable how largely that foundation of the English language has been preserved by means of our sailors.

—from the Introduction to Admiral W H Smyth's, The sailor's word book: an alphabetical digest of nautical terms (London: Blackie and Son, 1867), page 6.

* my emphasis