Each month, Emmy - one of our volunteers on The Gardeners' House Penzance project - will be bringing us a fascinating insight into one of the pieces in our collection.
We are home to an archive of over 2,000 volumes documenting the natural history of Cornwall.
We'll be building on this archive to support the creation of new botanical collections and a rare plant registry -but for now, we're excited to bring you Emmy's Finds.
Birds of the Day, Eric Hosking and Cyril Newberry
(pub. Collins 1944)
Emmy tells us:
This is a book full of beautiful black and white photographs of birds. The two things which make it particularly interesting are: first, the photographer, Eric Hosking; and second, the publication date, 1944, and what that tells us about the process he had to go through to get these beautiful photographs.
Eric Hosking was born in 1909 and lived in London all his life. In 1929, when he started his career, making a living from wildlife photography was almost unheard of. Fortunately, he had understanding parents who could support him until his career got off the ground.
His career as a bird photographer was boosted by national publicity in 1937 when a tawny owl struck him in the face whilst he was returning to a hide. As a result he lost his left eye. The story was widely reported and increased demand for his pictures.
He gradually developed a range of income streams: as well as taking the photographs, mainly in spring and summer, he wrote articles for Picture Post and Country Life and books, including this one which sold more than 50,000 copies.
He also gave 100 or more lectures per year, illustrated with slides of his photographs, to audiences of up to 3,000 people. He became renowned in the field of photography and wildlife conservation, receiving the RSPB’s gold
medal in 1974 and an OBE in 1977, as well as chairing the Wildlife Photographer of the Year judging panel.
The process of photography in 1944 was very different from the cameras we take for granted now (the first 35mm SLR camera was launched in 1949). It was impossible to look through the lens, so the photographer had to calculate focus based on the distance to the subject and manually calculate exposure, hoping the light didn’t change before the photo was taken, especially since the film’s sensitivity to light was very low (around ISO 10).
Photographers could only take one picture before reloading with a new plate – as Eric’s son explained “He used a camera which used quarter-plate glass negatives, one exposure per side. A day’s photography could be just 12 pictures and you had to hope there was something usable.”
Each of the pictures in this book is accompanied by a description of the bird, how he found it and some of its behaviour. In some cases there are longer anecdotes, demonstrating his respect and compassion for the birds he photographed.
As his long term collaborator, Frank Lane, put it, for Hosking “the bird comes first. He is hurt if he thinks any action of his caused a bird distress.”
We'll be bringing another blog from Emmy soon - if there are particular areas of interest you'd like us to feature, please do let us know at communications@thegardenershouse.org
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