Skip to main content

Ray McJannett on Augustus Jones, Photographer, Gunning circa 1880-1912

Image
By
L-R: Annie, Nerida, Janet and Ray with vintage photos and negatives at the Tony Foley Centre

On Saturday, 3rd December 2016, Ray McJannett conducted a seminar on the works of the Gunning photographer Augustus Jones. At the end of the seminar, participants had the opportunity to ask Ray about their own family photographs, including two early daguerreotype plates dating from at least the 1880s.

Augustus "Gus" Jones lived near Lade Vale and worked as a photographer in the Gunning, Lade Vale, Greenvale, Dalton and Jerrawa areas. Gus spent some twenty years as a photographer, beginning around 1890 until his early death at the age of forty, in about 1912.

Gus focused exclusively on portraiture, and unlike many Victorian photographers, his photos were taken exclusively outdoors. Ray presented digitised versions of Gus' work on a large screen television, and spent some time explaining the techniques of vintage photography.

Augustus Jones, Self Portrait.
Image courtesy of Ray McJannett.
Gus used gelatin dry plates to produce portraits that were cropped and presented on black card (roughly the size of a typical playing card) with the photographer's name printed across the bottom of the card. Gus continued to use dry plates throughout his career, despite the invention of celluloid film in 1889. 

Gus left a significant collection of works taken in the Gunning region. Ray suggested that Gus' work had a Gothic appearance, and was superb in its use of light. Many of the photographs reveal the personality and character of the people and the fashion and living standards and styles of the day.

Interesting items brought along to the seminar included vintage photographs of relatives wearing unusual formal regalia, a young family member on horseback, a picture of the main street of Gunning from the early 1900s, and two very early daguerreotype plates or negatives.

French artist Louis Daguerre invented the daguerreotype - an image recorded on a silvered copper plate. Ray referred to the daguerreotype as a "mirror with a memory". To view the daguerreotype image, Ray used a black card to apparently "reflect" the black on to the plate. This early photographic technique was a one-off event - if you wanted another copy, you had to resit the photograph!

Members and guests were most grateful for Ray's enthusiast introduction to vintage photography. In Ray's words: "It's great. I love it!"

An article about Ray's work and the 360-strong collection appeared in The Canberra Times earlier in 2016. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Settlers in Lade Vale: Frank and Catherine Lawless

By
Is this the house that Frank built? Remains of a substantial granite block house on land once owned by the first settlers in Lade Vale, Frank and Catherine Lawless.  It may well have been built by Frank when the family took up their circa 1826 land grant. While we cannot be absolutely certain this is his work, there can be no doubt it is just the sort of house a skilled builder/bricklayer such as Frank would have constructed to settle his family in. Frank and Catherine Lawless  – The Lade Vale Years The Story So Far This is the second chapter in our look at early colonial settlers Frank and Catherine Lawless written by their 3rd great granddaughter, Carmel Peek, in association with GDHS. At the end of our last episode: Bricklayer Frank [as he was commonly called rather than by his formal given name Francis] had been transported to Sydney from Ireland in 1809 following his conviction for highway robbery; He compounded his failings and misfortunes in late 1810 whe...
2 comments
Read more

William Brown’s Bible – “The best book to read"

By
By Matt Friend Personal objects can often be overlooked when conducting family research. It may be that they are seen as merely possessions, however objects can provide us with rich and invaluable information and stories. While consulting a well-crafted genealogy publication, concerning the Holgate family, I observed an interesting note. On the pages that were of interest to me at the time (those detailing members of the Brown, Whittington, Noakes and Alchin families) there was a small note at the bottom crediting the information provided upon those pages to a bible that was, at the time the author put the book together, in the possession of Isabell Alchin (nee Whittington). Mention of the Bible as it appears in the Holgate Family Genealogy Book by Daphne Holgate Isabell Alchin was my Nanna, and when she died in 1996 the contents of her home, in Jobson Street Dalton, were sorted, moved into storage or dispersed among family. It was possible then that the bible, mentione...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lees Family Origins: Links to Gunning

By
Waratah (now Warrataw) Street, Gunning, circa 1905. Article by Kim Lees The Lees family emigrated from Germany in the 1850’s as Bounty Immigrants under a scheme to bring citizens from various countries to Australia to assist in establishing farming and other industries. They came from the wine growing area of Grossbottwar, some 26 kms north of Stuttgart. It has been possible, through a German Ancestry organisation ‘Beyond History’, to trace the Lees family in Grossbottwar as far back as the late 1500s, some 6 generations before the family emigrated from Germany to Australia. In 2013 I visited Grossbottwar where I met with a cousin and his family who still live there.  The Lees family (parents Johannes (48) & Louisa (44) and children Conrad (20), Adam (16), Jacob (14), Fredricka (9), and David (6)) travelled to Australia on the Dutch Barque ‘Helene’ with 215 other German Immigrants. The youngest child, a daughter Christiana (aged 5 months) died on the voyage to Aust...
3 comments
Read more