High-quality photographs of the First World War can be difficult to come by. For Canadian troops, this was partly due to a ban on photography on the field. Worried about inadvertent leaking of secrets or demoralizing the home front via the photos, Routine Order No.189 was instated on March 20, 1915. If caught, the photographer could be punished by death. However, this didnt stop a lot of soldiers (both the men and the officers, though the latter certainly had a easier time of it) from doing it anyway. In part, this was made possible by the introduction of the Kodak Vest Pocket camera. When folded, it was smaller than many smartphones today. As a bonus, the back of the camera could open up and soldiers could write messages/captions directly onto the negative. Due to their small size, soldiers could smuggle the cameras fairly easily, and film could be purchased in towns and cities away from the front. Developing the film was a bit more tricky, however - since it required quite bulky facilities, soldiers could only develop the film when on leave. Otherwise, sometimes a very long and roundabout process was required, as illustrated by the experience of George Bell, a CEF member: My sister mailed films to me from England, and I sent them back by soldiers to London, where they were developed and printed and the prints mailed to my sister who, in turn, mailed them to me, a roundabout method which worked quite successfully. As the war went on, the Canadian War Records Office (CWRO) was established to make formal visual records of the war - paintings, drawings, photographs, and video. Headed by Sir Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, the CWRO had a total of only three professional photographers for the entire war. Surprisingly, the subject matter chosen by the CWRO photographers and many other soldiers were quite similar - a tendency to avoid recording the nasty part of war and emphasize the positive and interesting parts. To read more on the subject, Carla-Jean Stokes has an excellent 3-part blog series on photography in the war: canadianmilitaryhistory.ca/photography-on-the-front-lines-part-3-soldier-made-photography-of-the-first-world-war-by-carla-jean-stokes/ Photo: The Kodak Vest Pocket in its closed position (credit: Norfolk in World War One norfolkinworldwar1.org/2014/03/14/soldiers-ww1-photographs/); an amateur photo taken by Canadian soldier on the front lines, possibly with a Kodak Vest Pocket (from the Stokes article above)
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 20:41:09 +0000
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