We're up and running fully now with the Morrey Salmon Photographic collection cleaning (and subsequently digitsing).
Here he is in the 1980s with his third camera
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| Copyright National Museum of Wales used under CNS licence |
He was recognised as an incredible man notonly in this field but because of his military service in WW1 and WW2. Some of that is noted in his biography
“Col. Morrey Salmon must now be regarded as the father of British bird photography” (Eric Hosking OBE. Bird photographer).
“He was a legendary figure from way back in the early days of conservation in this country” (Sir Peter Scott CH, CBE, DSC & Bar, FRS, FZS, Founder of the WWT and WWF).
“He – by quite extraordinary efforts well outside what might be regarded as a norm – made a major contribution to RAF operations in North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Balkans. His dedication and professional competence set a standard which has been reflected in RAF Regiment operations ever since” (Air Vice-Marshall Donald Pocock).
“I especially valued the leadership he was able to give in Wales in regard to ornithology and conservation” (Max Nicholson, President RSPB).
“He was a great Naturalist and a great Welshman” (Roger Lovegrove RSPB).
From his first bird photograph taken in 1909 to his later work we will be looking at it all
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| Lapwing by Morrey Salmon copyright National Museum of Wales used under CNS licence |
After the introduction training a couple of weeks ago where Lisa from the National Museum of Wales taught us how to clean glass lantern slides and glass negatives we had our first full session today with about 100 glass negatives cleaned and repackaged into acid free archival envelopes.
This is a "long haul project" with over 3600 objects currently noted to be dealt with and that doesn't mean just cleaning and repackaging we have to identify the pictures and locations and put information togetether about each one from his diaries and notebooks and other CNS resources so there is a long way to go.
But we thought you may like to see a few pictures of the current volunteers at work and some of the pictures we are already working on.
As you can see from the sparrow on the birdbox some of the pictures are sadly in a bad way, but many more are in almost perfect condition and the quality of the photography given the equipment available is nothing less than amazing.
There is a lot more of this story to tell so keep watching out for future posts.
