‘Photo-booth’ gallery of everyday life
NEWLY DISCOVERED ‘stickyback’ portraits taken more than 100 years ago reveal a gallery of working class Cornish people – that could be straight out of
Peaky Blinders.
The collection was bought by Jon Symons, 54, who spotted them for sale on eBay.
They show working class people in a ‘photo-booth’ during the Edwardian era and were believed to have been taken in a shop in Penzance, Cornwall, in around 1915.
Mr Symons believes they give an ‘emotional glimpse into the past’, portraying the faces of everyday people of the time, struggling to get by on the low incomes typical of the area.
‘Sticky back’ photos were an affordable development in portrait photography around the time of the First World War.
They gave people from middle and even lower income households their first opportunity to see photographs of themselves and their loved ones.
For most people, seeing themselves in a photograph was both bewildering and exciting.
The images are not much larger than a postage stamp and could easily be attached to a postcard and sent through the post.
Mr Symons, of Penzance, said: “The photographs are particularly poignant at the present time.
“Cornwall, having long been one of the most deprived parts of the country, would have been an ideal market.
“So, when a small chain of photographic businesses set up branches in Penzance and Falmouth, offering affordable miniature portrait photographs for the masses, it was instantly popular.
“One could perhaps liken this new technology to the arrival of affordable mobile phone contracts and picture messaging in the modern day.”
Mr Symons, who is a member of the Rotary Club of Penzance, added: “I bought these as they represent a delightful piece of social history.”