May the 12th, the Société Française de Photographie

May the 12th.

The Société Française de Photographie is one of the oldest, private photography clubs in existence. It can boast a collection featuring 50,000 prints and 100,000 positive and negative plates. It also keeps a specialist library with over 8,000 books and 650 journals. The collection was amassed purely through donation and gifts rather than purchased, many of the works being brought in by photographers who were members. While the acquisitions began to slow down in the 1950s, the Société would still receive gifts of whole collections and archives. Despite several moves, including an upcoming one to the National Library, the Société remains a private institution, run almost entirely by volunteers.

The Société Française de Photographie. 

 A Calotype in the Société's collection.

Founded in 1854 by Henri Victor Régnaut, the Société Française de Photographie, and still prides itself on being a network for its members; discussion, publication and dissemination of information in the photographic world is very important to the Société. Throughout its history, conservation of the collection and maintaining the history of photography has also played a key role. The Société has journals and records of experiments in the field, all of which were discussed between members at the time. Beginning in 1997, Études Photographiques was published twice yearly, and featured articles and research focusing on the Société’s aims, discussion and the safeguarding of photographic history.

Paul-Louis Roubert's gloved hands and the Régnault album.

The Société’s current president, Paul-Louis Roubert showed us some amazing things from the collection’s vast and eclectic history. Of all this, I think a ‘family’ album by the Société’s first president, Régnault, was my personal favorite. Roubert brought out a box that housed the album, and doubled as a personalized book cradle for the album so it could be viewed without damaging the spine. The album itself seems to have been premade, something to collect drawings and engravings in, rather than photographs. It was labeled as being “by Régnault” and with an identification code of “BN,” something Roubert notes to be part of Régnault’s unknown identification system. The National Library, specifically for an exhibition that occurred six years ago, had restored the album for the Société. Upon opening the album, we are greeted with images of Régnault’s immediate family, including his mother-in-law and his son. 

 The Régnault album.

Régnault also featured portraits of colleagues, and examples of their work. This is where the album gets interesting since, in many cases, there are multiple examples of the image. In many cases there are different methods of creating an image, Calotype versus a Talotype, for example and in other cases there are multiple versions of toning. This family album was doubling as an example book for the ever-changing photographic techniques that were being created during Régnault’s time. It also shows the exchange and discussion that was occurring between photographers at in the early days of the Société. The album features photographs from Hippolyte Bayard, William Henry Fox Talbot, and even Gustave Le Gray. The album also features a work from the first female photographer, Amelie Guillot-Saguez. Someone who I had never heard of within the canon of Photography, and probably should have, is rubbing shoulders with some of the largest names in photographic history.

 A positive image within the album.

 The negative for the above positive.

This album was amazing to me. Apart from the fact that the album itself was in excellent condition, thanks to storage conditions and its recent cleaning, the contents are fascinating. The intimate portraits of Régnault’s family are in the traditional, painting style of seated and styled portraits, but their presentation in an album was unheard of at the time. The album is considered to be one of the first albums to record a family in the sense that we see in family photo albums today. The album also shows Régnault’s personal tastes. Not only are the works he collected from other photographers featured within its pages, the album does actually have some engravings and drawings, something it was designed to carry in the first place! 

Roubert showed us many things aside from this album, arguably the coolest being a series of autochromes by Leon Gimpel. Gimpel had met the Lumière brothers shortly after their invention of the autochrome process had been presented at the Académie des Sciences, and began improving upon the process. He succeeded in that he was able to take some of the first colour images of everyday life, instead of still-life scenes.In the case of the autochromes that Roubert showed us, those everyday life scenes included some staged scenes with children and props. The photographs from 1910, lovingly titled The Grenata Street Army, Gimpel befriended a group of children from the neighbourhood of the same name in Paris, who had established their own play army. He helped them build their own tanks and aircraft, documenting their 'battles' against the German forces. My bad photography aside, the colours from these autochromes, over a hundred years on, look amazing. And there's a nude, so I'm happy.

 Autochromes by Leon Gimpel.

 The class looking at said autochromes.

All photographs by A Cook.