The University of Sydney - Sydney University Museums

2.3 Mounting Stereo Photographs

John Smith was one of the foundation professors at the University of Sydney. A keen amateur photographer, he took stereo photographs of the construction of the Great Hall and clock tower of the Main Building in the late 1850s. Smith exchanged his stereo photographs with other amateurs and the photograph of the clock tower being constructed is from the collection his friend Robert Hunt. While its content is interesting this stereo view provides us with an insight into the difficulties these early photographers faced when mounting their prints on to card.

Most stereo photographers, amateur and professional, used a commercially produced card to mount their views. Typically these mounting boards were composed of thin layers of good quality paper that enclosed a centre filler of poor quality board. Unfortunately this centre often becomes brittle as well as being the source of acidification in the mount and print producing the spots known as foxing.

Smith’s stereo prints are mounted on an inverted card with gold borders and the initials “GR”. These are the initials of the well-known London publishers Gebhardt, Rottmann, & Co. and can be found on the stereo views they published in the late 1850s. Presumably finding they were short of their usual card, either John Smith or Robert Hunt must have used Gebhardt, Rottmann, & Co.’s commercial mount rather than compromise the photograph by putting it on to inferior card.