Date
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Looking Over the Over Looked - Lesser-known Colour Photography Processes with Janine Freeston
Janine will be sharing a work in progress that focuses knowledge exchange pertaining to lesser-known screen plate processes in particular illustrations of screen plates presented during a 1912 slide lecture that point to the complexities of launching nascent technologies and  the importance of further interrogation of how and why some processes forefronted commercial interest and eclipsed others. Along with other researchers, Janine is interested in learning more about new lesser/unknown processes and their unique attributions.
Pre-1914, seeing examples of color photography processes was limited to photographic exhibitions, photographic studio windows or disappointingly photomechanically transposed for very expensive publications which inherently lacked the luminosity of the backlit originals. Much was written in black and white about various processes in the photographic press, but imagining how they looked in comparison to each other was impossible. Consequently, many nuanced nascent solutions were swiftly eclipsed by the more commercially successful competitors. As a result, little is known about many less successful processes and their contributions to the incremental improvements that innovators explored while seeking to achieve simple and economic color photographs. The dissemination of information about early colour photography rested on the enthusiasm of manufacturers’ representatives and  amateur photographers’ exhibiting, presenting and demonstrating to camera clubs and reporting in press articles. Unfortunately these events usually confined themselves to one process at a time making comparisons between them impossible. This conundrum was addressed at the First Colour Photography Exhibition in Britain and the subsequent founding of the Society of Colour Photographers who actively circulated examples of members work and feedback from specialists work in the portfolios, leading to the publication of didactic guides and descriptive critiques in the monochrome photographic press leaving readers to try and imagine the ease of production and the fidelity of various processes. 
Reference Material
Pénichon, Sylvie. Twentieth Century Colour Photographs: The Complete Guide to Processes, Identification & Preservation. London ; New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2013.
Wall, E. J. History of Three Color Photography. First. Boston, Mass., USA: American Photographic Publishing Company, 1925.
Friedman, Joseph Solomon. History of Colour Photography. 2nd ed. American Photographic Publishing Company, 1945.
König, Dr, E., and E. J. Wall. Natural Colour Photography, with Color Chart, Test-Results, and Diagrams. First. London: Dawbarn and Ward Ltd., 1906.
Rendall, H. E. Colour Photography. First Edition. RPS, 1931.
Utterback, James M. Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School, 2006.
Sobieszek, Robert A. Color as Form; A History of Colour Photography-Exhibition Catalogue from the International Museum of Photography George Eastman House. George Estman House Rochester New York: George Eastman House, 1982.
Biography
Janine Freeston is an Independent Researcher, writer, practitioner, tutor, lecturer, consultant and co-convener of this CHSTM Working Group. She specializes in early color photography and photographic processes, currently researching the associated technological and litigious aspects of trichromatic technology up to the 1930s. Her completed thesis Colour photography in Britain, 1906-1932: Exhibition, Technology, Commerce and Culture - the Dynamics that Shaped its Emergence, will presently be available. Janine is currently co-authoring an undergraduate study guide to understanding and applying research methods for photography in cultural studies and coordinates annual research symposiums on behalf of the Royal Photographic Society Historical Group with the Senior Lecturer in Photography at Wolverhampton University for academics, writers and collectors at any stage of their research.