Within the last few years photographic portraits have gradually been
diminishing in price, until at the present time they have become a
regular article of street commerce. Those living at the west-end
of London have but little idea of the number of persons who gain a
livelihood by street photography.
There may be one or two “galleries” in the New-road, or in
Tottenham-court-road, but these supply mostly shilling portraits. In
the eastern and southern districts of London, however, such as in
Bermondsey, the New-cut, and the Whitechapel-road, one cannot walk
fifty yards without passing some photographic establishment, where for
sixpence persons can have their portrait taken, and framed and glazed
as well.
It was in Bermondsey that I met with the first instance of what may be
called pure street photography. Here a Mr. F----l was taking sixpenny
portraits in a booth built up out of old canvas, and erected on a piece
of spare ground in a furniture-broker’s yard.
Mr. F----l had been a travelling showman, but finding that photography
was attracting more attention than giants and dwarfs, he relinquished
the wonders of Nature for those of Science.
Into this yard he had driven his yellow caravan, where it stood
like an enormous Noah’s ark, and in front of the caravan (by means
of clothes-horses and posts, over which were spread out the large
sail-like paintings (show-cloths), which were used at fairs to decorate
the fronts of booths), he had erected his operating-room, which is
about as long and as broad as a knife-house, and only just tall enough
to allow a not particularly tall customer to stand up with his hat off:
whilst by means of two window-sashes a glazed roof had been arranged
for letting light into this little tent.
On the day of my visit Mr. F----l was, despite the cloudy state of the
atmosphere, doing a large business. A crowd in front of his tent was
admiring the photographic specimens, which, of all sizes and in all
kinds of frames, were stuck up against the canvas-wall, as irregularly
as if a bill-sticker had placed them there. Others were gazing up at
the chalky-looking paintings over the door-way, and on which a lady was
represented photographing an officer, in the full costume of the 11th
Hussars.
Inside the operating room we found a crowd of women and children was
assembled, all of them waiting their turn to be taken. Mr. F----l
remarked, as I entered, that ‘It was wonderful the sight of children
that had been took;’ and he added, ‘when _one_ girl comes for her
portrait, there’s a _dozen_ comes along with her to see it took.’
The portraits I discovered were taken by Mrs. F----l, who, with the
sleeves of her dress tucked up to the elbows, was engaged at the moment
of my visit in pointing the camera at a lady and her little boy, who,
from his wild nervous expression, seemed to have an idea that the
operatress was taking her aim previous to shooting him. Mr. F----l
explained to me the reason why his wife officiated. “You see,” said he,
“people prefers more to be took by a woman than by a man. Many’s a time
a lady tells us to send that man away, and let the missis come. It’s
quite natural,” he continued; “for a lady don’t mind taking her bonnet
off and tucking up her hair, or sticking a pin in here and there before
one of her own sect, which before a man proves objectionable.”
After the portrait had been taken I found that the little square piece
of glass on which it was impressed was scarcely larger than a visiting
card, and this being handed over to a youth, was carried into the
caravan at the back, where the process was completed. I was invited to
follow the lad to the dwelling on wheels.
The outside of the caravan was very remarkable, and of that peculiar
class of architecture which is a mixture of coach-and-ship building.
In the centre of the front of the show were little folding-doors
with miniature brass knockers, and glass let into the upper panels.
On each side of the door were long windows, almost big enough for a
shop-front, whilst the white curtains, festooned at their sides, gave
them a pleasant appearance. The entire erection was coloured yellow,
and the numerous little wooden joists and tie-beams, which framed and
strengthened the vehicle, conferred upon it a singular plaid-like
appearance.
I mounted the broad step-ladder and entered. The room reminded me of
a ship’s cabin, for it was panelled and had cross-beams to the arched
roof, whilst the bolts and fastenings were of bright brass. If the
windows had not been so large, or the roof so high, it would have
resembled the fore-cabin of a Gravesend steamer. There were tables
and chairs, as in an ordinary cottage room. At one end was the family
bed, concealed during the day by chintz curtains, which hung down like
a drop-scene before a miniature theatre; and between the openings of
these curtains I could catch sight of some gaudily attired wax figures
stowed away there for want of room, but standing there like a group of
actors behind the scenes.
Along one of the beams a blunderbuss and a pistol rested on hooks, and
the showman’s speaking trumpet (as large as the funnel to a grocer’s
coffee-mill) hung against the wall, whilst in one corner was a kind of
cabin stove of polished brass, before which a boy was drying some of
the portraits that had been recently taken.
“So you’ve took him at last,” said the proprietor, who accompanied us
as he snatched the portrait from the boy’s hand. “Well, the eyes ain’t
no great things, but as it’s the third attempt it must do.”
On inspecting the portrait I found it to be one of those drab-looking
portraits with a light back-ground, where the figure rises from the
bottom of the plate as straight as a post, and is in the cramped,
nervous attitude of a patient in a dentist’s chair.
After a time I left Mr. F----l’s, and went to another establishment
close by, which had originally formed part of a shop in the
penny-ice-and-bull’s-eye line--for the name-board over “Photographic
Depôt” was still the property of the confectioner--so that the
portraits displayed in the window were surmounted by an announcement of
“Ginger beer 1_d._ and 2_d._”
A touter at the door was crying out “Hi! hi!--walk inside! walk inside!
and have your c’rect likeness took, frame and glass complete, and only
6_d._!--time of sitting only four seconds!”
A rough-looking, red-faced tanner, who had been staring at some
coloured French lithographs which decorated the upper panes, and
who, no doubt, imagined that they had been taken by the photographic
process, entered, saying, “Let me have my likeness took.”
The touter instantly called out, “Here, a shilling likeness for this
here gent.”
The tanner observed that he wanted only a sixpenny.
“Ah, very good, sir!” and raising his voice, the touter shouted louder
than before--“A sixpenny one first, and a shilling one afterwards.”
“I tell yer I don’t want only sixpennorth,” angrily returned the
customer, as he entered.
At this establishment the portraits were taken in a little alley
adjoining the premises, where the light was so insufficient, that even
the blanket hung up at the end of it looked black from the deep shadows
cast by the walls.
When the tanner’s portrait was completed it was nearly black; and,
indeed, the only thing visible was a slight light on one side of the
face, and which, doubtlessly, accounted for the short speech which
the operator thought fit to make as he presented the likeness to his
customer.
“There,” he said, “there is your likeness, if you like! look at
it yourself; and only eightpence”--“Only sixpence,” observed the
man.--“Ah!” continued the proprietor, “but you’ve got a patent American
preserver, and that’s twopence more.”
Then followed a discussion, in which the artist insisted that he
lost by every sixpenny portrait he took, and the tanner as strongly
protesting that he couldn’t believe that, for they must get _some_
profit any how. “You don’t tumble to the rig,” said the artist; “it’s
the half-guinea ones, you see, that pays us.”
The touter, finding that this discussion was likely to continue,
entered and joined the argument. “Why, it’s cheap as dirt,” he
exclaimed indignantly; “the fact is, our governor’s a friend of
the people, and don’t mind losing a little money. He’s determined
that everybody shall have a portrait, from the highest to the
lowest. Indeed, next Sunday, he _do_ talk of taking them for
threepence-ha’penny, and if that ain’t philandery, what is?”
After the touter’s oration the tanner seemed somewhat contented,
and paying his eightpence left the shop, looking at his picture in
all lights, and repeatedly polishing it up with the cuff of his
coat-sleeve, as if he were trying to brighten it into something like
distinctness.
Whilst I was in this establishment a customer was induced to pay
twopence for having the theory of photography explained to him. The
lecture was to the effect, that the brass tube of the “camerer” was
filled with clock-work, which carried the image from the lens to the
ground glass at the back. To give what the lecturer called “hockeylar
proof” of this, the camera was carried to the shop-door, and a boy who
was passing by ordered to stand still for a minute.
“Now, then,” continued the lecturer to the knowledge-seeker, “look
behind here; there’s the himage, you see;” and then addressing the boy,
he added, “Just open your mouth, youngster;” and when the lad did so,
the student was asked, “Are you looking down the young un’s throat?”
and on his nodding assent, he was informed, “Well, that’s the way
portraits is took.”