More great websites
Many excellent regional websites offer information about professional photographers. For example photohistorysussex.co.uk includes a database of studios from towns and villages across the county, plus you can explore biographies of noted Brighton photographers, with hundreds of example images. Although it’s no longer updated www.photolondon.org.uk has a similar database, 19th Century Photographers and Allied Trades in London: 1841–1901. There’s a multi- county collection of databases at earlyphotographers.org. uk/databases.html, or you can try specific sites covering the Isle of Wight ( childsweb.net), Birmingham and Warwickshire ( hunimex. com/warwick/photogs.html), Cambridgeshire ( fadingimages. uk/cbphoto.asp and bit.ly/mike-petty), Derbyshire ( bit.ly/ dbyphoto), Hertfordshire ( bit.ly/hertsphotos), Ayrshire ( bit.ly/ ayrshire-photos), Edinburgh ( edinphoto.org.uk), Glasgow ( bit. ly/glasgowphotos) and the Isle of Man ( bit.ly/ islephotos).
You should also visit local archive, museum and library websites to see what local history images are online. Some, like our expert’s choice, will have dedicated picture libraries such as these covering Lancashire ( redrosecollections.lancashire.gov.uk), Leicestershire ( image leicestershire.org.uk), Greater London ( collage.cityoflondon. gov.uk), Warwickshire ( windowsonwarwickshire.org.uk – see page 83) and Shetland ( photos.shetland- museum.org.uk). There are also hundreds of city/ town examples, from Wycombe ( swop.org.uk) to Leeds ( www.leodis.net), and archives may post images to such sites as flickr.com and historypin.org.
Forums (for example bit.ly/rootschat- photos) can be a great way to research photographs. You can post images and ask for help assigning a date, and there’s all sorts of advice about how to clean up and enhance family snaps using photo- editing software. Don’t forget whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine. com/forum, either!
Additional resources include regular contributor Jayne Shrimpton’s blog ( jayneshrimpton. tumblr.com), the Photographic Convention of the UK from 1896 to 1910 ( bit.ly/photo convention), phototree. com/identify.htm and earlyphotography.co.uk.