Mike, and
anybody else who may be interested,

 In view of some speculation and comment about
the recent Trevithick Society publication H.G.
Ordish The Early Cornish Mining Photographs 1920 – 1933, I would like to
take the opportunity, if I may, to explain in an open letter some of the
reasons behind it, and to raise and discuss some possible misconceptions
concerning technical aspects of photography at the time H.G. Ordish took these
pictures.

 

Firstly, I
have to admit that it was I who ‘put the cat among the pigeons’, and caused,
albeit, a temporary hiatus in availability and distribution of the book. I
first conceived this project something like eighteen months ago, born out of my
great interest in the pictorial side of Cornish mining history, and respect and
admiration for the work of H.G. Ordish over many decades.

 

As I have
explained in the book, I became privileged to see, handle and print a set of
photographs from all Ordish’s early Cornish mining negatives (some 210 of them)
and, judging by his own favourable comments at the time, I must have done
something right. I would like to emphasise at this point that virtually all the
original negatives were in good condition for their age, generally well exposed,
and satisfactorily developed and fixed. Since the great majority of them had
never before been seen, let alone published, I was convinced that these should
be brought to a wider audience and, eventually, it was decided to produce a
book of them. Then began the task of re-scanning my original darkroom prints to
convert them to digitised image files, correcting any visible defects in the
original negatives (obvious signs of a little light leakage, dust spots,
occasional chemical deterioration etc.) and optimising them in terms of
contrast and tone range. As you can imagine, this took very many hours of
careful patient work that I carried out to the best of my ability, resulting in
what I consider a superb set of dedicated greyscale digital inkjet prints (and
I have had many years’ experience of darkroom work, coupled with much advice
and knowledge gleaned from better photographers than myself) so that I am
confident that I know what
constitutes a satisfying, well-balanced image).

 

So, images
were selected for publication, arranged, I wrote the captions and the introductory
text, and everything was laid out as a PDF document for publication. I had put
my heart and soul into the project, determined to do full justice to this
important collection of images, OK’d the proofs, but when I first saw a printed
and bound copy of the book I was disappointed with what I considered to be many
rather pale, grey and insubstantial images with scarcely a good, decent ‘black’
to be seen. This, I felt, made me look a bit of an idiot after banging on in
the introduction about image quality and H.G.O.’s views etc., so therefore,
after some thought, I contacted the publications editor and expressed my
dissatisfaction, stressing my reasons. The result was the short, temporary
withdrawal of distribution of the book pending further discussion. As it has
turned out, an executive decision has been taken to let things stand as they
are and resume distribution, so there I have to let it rest.

 

Secondly,
I have to express sincere thanks to Mark Ordish and Anna Baxter (H.G.O.’s son
and daughter) for their unfailing and enthusiastic support given to me in
respect of the project, and provision of much encouragement and supplementary
biographical information. 

 

Thirdly,
grateful thanks to those who have already made complementary remarks about the
book on websites such as the Mining History List etc. though this is tinged
with regret that they will now never see these images as they should be.

 

Lastly,
(and finally I maybe hear you say) perhaps I may raise and discuss some
technical aspects regarding cameras, films and photography in general during
the period under consideration, that might put to bed any slight misconceptions.

 


 Although H.G.O.’s pictures
     were taken on relatively small negatives, cameras of the period (even with
     modest maximum lens apertures - f/6.3 at best, or more likely f/8) - were capable of taking good images
     if handled correctly, and certainly, if properly processed, the negatives
     wood be of a quality allowing a definite degree of enlargement. I myself
     have taken perfectly acceptable pictures with an old box camera fitted with
     a ‘Rapid Rectilinear’ f/8 lens. Film speeds were slower then, of course,
     necessitating care with hand-held exposures.
 The fixed focal length lens
     used on H.G.O.’s camera was what was referred to at the time as ‘standard’,
     with by no means a wide angle of view, accounting for a somewhat
     restricted capability in some pictures (e.g. the Botallack pair, pp. 20
     and 21, and Pednandrea, p. 96). Incidentally, for my own satisfaction I
     have seamlessly stitched these two images together to create an additional
     image, though this was not included in the book for obvious reasons.
 I don’t know for sure if he
     made use of a lightweight tripod of any description (or rest of some sort)
     for certain shots, though many interiors (e.g. the Dolcoath traversing
     winding engine, p. 72 and the Magdalen Mine shots of the air compressor
     and views in the mill etc., pp. 98, 108 and 110) are of excellent
     definition indicating the possibility of this at the longish exposure
     times that would have been necessary.
 Apart from the use of
     orthochromatic film, another typical problem encountered at that time was
     the dual one of ‘halation’ and ‘irradiation’ when facing strong light
     sources. I can do no better to illustrate the point than by paraphrasing The Ilford Manual of Photography.
     Basically, strong or very bright light meeting the film emulsion through
     the lens is:


(a) Somewhat scattered by striking the individual silver
halide grains in the emulsion and has an effect on adjacent grains (this is
‘irradiation’), and

(b) Passes right through the emulsion layer and is
reflected back off the film base into the sensitive emulsion layer producing
yet more scattering of light to create a ‘halo’ effect around the very
brightest areas of light (‘halation’).

This may well account for some apparent ’fuzziness’ in some
images (e.g. Killifreth pp. 115,116), as these were taken on a bright day and
facing more or less south, into the sun, and in the Magdalen mill interior (p.
110). At the moment, I cannot find out the exact
date when a red-coloured, anti-halation backing was generally applied to roll
films in an attempt to counteract this, but I think it is highly probable that
at least some of the film stock used by H.G.O. (and this could well have
varied) would not have been anti-halation backed, thus exaggerating the effect 


 H.G.O. was a very careful
     worker, who took pains to get the best results he could. He usually only
     took a single image (at least it is mostly these that have been retained)
     except for the interior shot of the Levant winder with driver, when he
     took two, one greatly superior to the other (p. 31). Also, he did try some
     experiments with stereo pairs, moving the camera a few inches and taking a
     second shot. He once remarked in one of his letters that I may well find
     such pairs amongst his negatives, and that I might consider one of better
     quality than the other – this was certainly so with the Sally Bottom
     picture (p. 126).


 

Well Mike (and anybody else still reading), that is about
all I can find to say on the matter. Hopefully it might serve to give some
further insight into the ‘art’ of photography at the time, and that of H.G.O.
in particular. I can only hope also that anyone buying the book comes to
realise and appreciate the importance of these images within the field of
Cornish mining history, and that they feel as lastingly grateful to H.G.O. as I
do.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Tony Clarke,

Coombe,

15th October 2011.