John Park
The Macleay Museum holds approximately 1400 John Park glass plate negatives and several hundred prints c1900 - 1925. These Prints include several miniature panorama images of Sydney harbour. Subject matter includes portraits, recreational sailing, circular quay, fairgrounds, whaling, celebrations for soldiers returning from World War One many of these from the suburb of Leichhardt in Sydney. Also in the collection is a set of hand coloured lantern slides depicting famous scenes from the Cino/Japanese war.
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 Girl in Fairy Costume |
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 Girl dressed as a nurse c1915 |
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 Cino Japanese war slides |
 Whaling c1900 |
 Fair Sydney c1910 |
 Fair Sydney c1910 |
 Parks Photographic Studio |
 Sailing Sydney Harbour c1910 |
 Sailing Sydney Harbour c1910 |
 Bondi Beach |
The John Park Collection also provides some good examples of studio techniques used by photographers to alter their glass plates, both by pencilling in and scraping off details on the glass plate negatives. As shown below.
Altering Photographic Glass Plates
The photograph above has had some easily identifiable modifications made to it after the photograph was shot. Notice the fuzzyness of the lines on the weatherboard wall behind the man on the right.
In this close up of the mans left hand we can see Park has etched into the emulsion to take away the distracting black lines of the weatherboard wall and the dark area on the bottom of the wall thus enhancing the outline of the man.
The close up of the mans face also reveals how Park has etched the distracting lines of the weatherboard wall away from the mans head, as well as some obvious reworking of the face.