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Category:Photo Car

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Photographic Cars

Detail of the Windsor Wharves, showing a Palace Rail Road Photo Car, early 1880s.

These were specially fitted passenger car bodies with a mobile darkroom, photo studio with skylight, along with photographic supplies and quarters for the photographer. They emerged in the Western United States beginning about 1870.[1] Some were converted cabooses or passenger cars while others were custom made for photography. Several photographers in Nova Scotia used photographic cars beginning in the 1880s, notably photographer Jeremiah Tuck (1830-1894) who travelled up and down the valley with his Palace RR Photo Car in the 1880s. "Prof. J.P. Tuck", as he billed himself, commissioned a 50-foot passenger car custom built by the Harris Company of Saint John, NB. The “photocar” was described as 50 feet long by 10 feet wide with 9 feet of headroom, "The reception room 13 x 6 will be at one end of the car, and next to it will be the studio or light room 8 x 10 feet 6 inches, with glass roof. The dark room will be 8 x 4, and the remainder of the [car] will be put to some use, as yet not decided upon. These rooms will be fitted up with all the appliances and adjuncts of the photographer’s art.”[2] Examples of his work appear from Annapolis Royal, Bridgetown, Middleton and Wolfville where he often took photos of graduates of Acadia University.[3]

Lewis Rice of Truro, a photographer who also had branch studios including Windsor and Wolfville bought Tuck's photo car in 1891.[4] Rice used the car to do studio work in rural parts of Nova Scotia, both in the valley as elsewhere such as Tatamagouche from about 1890 to 1907.[5] In 1907, he moved with his photo car to Banff, Alberta. He eventually settled in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan where he died in 1913.[6]

Another photographer with a photo car in the valley was the "Royal Photo Car" which advertised in 1891 for locations in Middleton, Lawrencetown, Paradise and Bridgetown[7] and E.J. Lumsden who advertised photography from his car in Bridgetown in December 1898.[8]

This category includes images of photographic cars and known photographs made on photographic cars along the Dominion Atlantic.

References

  1. "Frontier Era Photographers Travelled the Rails in Photo Cars", Sweetwater Now, July 25, 2021
  2. Jeff Ward, "the Early Light Project" Facebook Post, Nov. 25, 2022
  3. Tom Sheppard, Historic Wolfville: Grand Pre and Countryside, Nimbus (2003), p. 178.
  4. 'The Acadian, 1891 - Sept 11 - J.P. Tuck Photo Car taken over by Lewis Rice, courtesy Chris Gertridge
  5. Colchester Historeum, Photograph Accession number: 2016.37.1, Nova Muse
  6. Truro Daily News, August 14, 1907, courtesy Jeff Ward, discussed in Facebook Post April 24, 2023
  7. Bridgetown Weekly Monitor, Oct 21, 1891, courtesy Phil Vogler
  8. Bridgetown Weekly Monitor, Dec. 21, 1898, courtesy Phil Vogler

External Links

Photograph of Lewis Rice's Photo Car at Tatamagouche, circa 1890, Colchester Historeum, Photograph Accession number: 2016.37.1, Nova Muse

Palace Railroad Photograph Co images at the Wolfville Randall House Museum

Palace Railroad Photograph Co. images at the West Hants Historical Society

Examples of similar photo cars in action in the United States, The Cabinet Card Gallery

Media in category "Photo Car"

The following 6 files are in this category, out of 6 total.