Brighton Early 20th C Photography - Automatic Portraits
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Automatic Portrait Photographs |
The Sticky Backs Studio - Spiridione Grossi - Abraham Dudkin - Anatol Josepho and the Photomaton |
[ABOVE] The Brighton photographer Abraham Dudkin (1876-1949), proprietor of the Sticky Backs Studio at 54 North Street, Brighton, pictured with his son Lewis Stanley Dudkin (born 1909, Brighton) in a series of "automatic" photo strips produced around 1913. |
Spiridione Grossi and the Sticky Backs Studio in North Street, Brighton (1910-1911)
Spiridione Grossi (1877-1921) Spiridione Nicolo Grossi was born in Liverpool during the First Quarter of 1877, the eldest surviving son of Margaret Hearne and John Baptiste Grossi (c1836-1895), an "outfitter" and former photographer of Paradise Street, Liverpool. John Baptiste Grossi, Spiridione Grossi's father, was born in Austria around 1836, but by the time he was thirty he had settled in the English port of Liverpool. During the mid-1860s, John Baptiste Grossi worked as a professional photographer in Liverpool and in 1874 he married a young local teacher named Margaret Hearne (born 1854, Liverpool). John and Margaret Grossi produced a number of children and two of them, Spiridione Grossi and his younger sister Stella Marguerite Grossi (born 1883, Liverpool) went on to become professional photographers. In the 1901 census, Spiro Grossi, is recorded as a twenty-four year old "Photographic Printer" in the city of Liverpool. By 1907, Spiridione Grossi had opened his own photographic portrait studio in Liverpool. Trade directories published in 1907 and 1908, record Spiridione Grossi as a photographer at 107a Bold Street, Liverpool. Grossi then moved to Manchester, where he operated two photographic studios, one at 5 Marsden Square, the other at 84 Market Street. Around 1910, Spiridione Grossi moved south and established a photographic portrait studio in Brighton at 54 North Street. Spiridione Grossi operated a photographic portrait studio at 54 North Street, Brighton between 1910 and 1911. Spiro Grossi's studio at 54 North Street traded under the name of The Sticky Back & Post Card Studio. Grossi's establishment in North Street, Brighton mainly produced studio portraits in the popular postcard format (photographic portraits printed on cards measuring approximately 51/2 "x 31/2", specifically designed to be sent through the post), yet by 1911, Grossi's studio was also producing tiny photographic portraits called "Sticky Backs". Spiridione Grossi's "Sticky Back" Portraits In addition to being a photographer, Spiridione Grossi was an inventor and by 1910 he had devised a mechanical means of producing small photographic portraits on a strip of photographic paper. The reverse of the photographs were coated with a gum, which made the pictures adhesive when moistened. These small self-adhesive photographs became known as "Sticky Backs". As a photo magazine explained in 1912, "A Stickyback Photograph is one that has adhesive matter spread on the back, which it is simply necessary to moisten and then stick the picture on the mount. 'Stickyback' is the name by which small gummed-photographs, not much larger than a postage-stamp, are known." [Photo-era Magazine, Vol.28, 1912]. The "Sticky Back" photographs produced at Spiridione Grossi's studio in North Street measured roughly 2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. What made Grossi's tiny "sticky back" portraits distinctive were that they were created mechanically on a strip of photo-paper that could hold up to six individual portraits. In general appearance, the small photographic portraits made at Grossi's Sticky Backs studio resemble the photographs produced by modern-day automatic photo-booths, but although the strip photographs were created with the aid of a mechanical device invented by Spiridione Grossi, the camera at the North Street studio was operated by a human photographer and not an automatic machine triggered by a coin in a slot. [ See below for an account of the Photomaton, a coin-operated automatic photo-booth, invented by Anatol Josepho in 1925] Spiridione Grossi is believed to have devised an apparatus which took six small photographic portraits on a narrow strip of photo-paper. The backs of the small photographs were coated with a type of water-activated gum, similar to that used on postage stamps. These small adhesive photos, measuring approximately 2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. were generally known as "sticky-backs". The studio name "Sticky Backs" often appeared as a printed title on the photographic prints produced at Grossi's establishment at 54 North Street, Brighton. We do not have a detailed description of the photographic equipment used at Spiridione Grossi's Brighton studio in 1910-1911, but we can gain an idea of the type of apparatus used to produce these narrow strip prints from an invention Spiridione Grossi lodged with the Patent Office on 15th May 1916. British Patent No. 108691, entitled "Improvements in Strip Printing Photographic Apparatus", describes a "travelling box", a mechanical contraption comprising of hinged flaps, a spring-roller, a winding cord, a manually operated pawl, a sprocket wheel, metal-bound spring boards, an "endless chain", a rotating drum and a set of retaining angle-pieces. According to the detailed descriptions and specifications of the "Strip Printing Photographic Apparatus" that Spiridione Grossi lodged with the Patent Office, his invention was designed to "produce, from cameras containing several negatives ... a large number of (photographic) repeats upon sensitive sheets of paper stacked in piles and arranged for intermittent feeding". The invention Spiridione Grossi lodged with the Patent Office on 15th May 1916 was designed specifically for "enlarging photographs", yet the contraption described as a "travelling box" or "sliding box" which produced "a number of photographs" on a single strip of photo-paper was probably similar to the photographic apparatus employed at Grossi's studio in Brighton's North Street, some five years earlier. In the provisional specification for his "Improvements in Strip Printing Photographic Apparatus" (British Patent No. 108691), Grossi wrote :" My camera takes six negatives side by side" and "a special fixed negative giving the name and address of the photographer is fixed in the camera ". Below the multi-negative camera was a "travelling" or "sliding" box, "carrying a series of piles of sensitive paper, in long lengths extending the entire length of the box"... These sheets are preferably of a length of four or five or six photographs and a breadth of one." Grossi goes on to describe the mechanism by which the photo-strips are passed through the "travelling box" : "This box in my experimental device is slid from left to right, being propelled by a blind roller device and stopped at the right point for taking a set of photographs by a spring friction pawl acting on a rack with notches at regular intervals ... When the photographs are sufficiently exposed, the operator pulls the cord, the spring pawls slip out of their notches and enter the next ones, and thus a second length of the sensitive papers is exposed to the camera, and this goes on until the entire length of the sensitive paper in the box has been exposed." The "travelling box" contained six piles of photo-sensitive paper, each pile taking "about 150 papers to start with". Grossi's apparatus incorporated a mechanical system "whereby a large number of (photographic) repeats can be produced at once, and time in manipulation is greatly saved". The end result was a series of photographic portraits on a single strip of photographic paper, identified by a photo number and the name and address of the photographer's studio. In appearance, the strip of photographic portraits produced at Grossi's Sticky Backs studio, strongly resembled modern photo booth photographs. However, the camera and "travelling box" were not operated automatically by some electrical machine triggered by the insertion of a coin. Grossi, in his descriptions of his "Strip Printing Photographic Apparatus" makes it clear that the equipment required the intervention of a human operator. Although some of the movements of the machine were automatic, at various stages of the process, the apparatus had to be "manually operated". For instance, the operator had to lift the pawl to "allow the box to travel one photograph length at each change of the position". The photographs themselves had to be exposed by the camera operator. The sliding shutter, which ran in a set of grooves, was "pulled out or pushed in by hand so as to expose or cover the sensitive paper". The sliding shutter was "pulled out by the left hand, while the right hand holds the blind-roller device". The human operator also had to pull a cord to enable the next length of sensitive paper to be exposed to the camera. In many ways, Spiridione Grossi's Strip Printing Photographic Apparatus of 1916 was a primitive precursor of the first truly automatic photo-booth introduced some eight years later in 1924. The first steps in automated photography had been taken in the year 1889, when Mathew Stiffens patented an "automatic photography machine" and Monsieur Ernest Enjalbert demonstrated his coin- operated, automatic tintype machine at the Exposition Universelle, the World's Fair which opened in Paris in May 1889. The automatic photographic machines invented by Mathew Stiffens and Ernest Enjalbert produced photographic portraits on a metal strip (a ferrotype or "tintype"). Spiridione Grossi's photographic portraits were printed on narrow strips of photographic paper. The first automatic photo-booth, which produced several photographic portraits on strips of photographic paper, opened to the public in New York City during the Summer of 1925. The inventor of the automatic photo booth, Anatol Marco Josepho (1894-1980) created a machine that produced a strip of 8 good quality photographic portraits in 8 minutes. [ See below for an account of the life and career of Anatol Josepho and the Photomaton, a coin-operated automatic photo-booth he produced in 1925]. Spiridione Grossi operated the photographic portrait studio at 54 North Street, Brighton for a short period between 1910 and 1911. Spiridione Grossi is listed as a photographer at 54 North Street in Kelly's Directory of Brighton, Hove and Preston, Kelly's Sussex Directory and the 1911 edition of W. T. Pike's Brighton and Hove Directory. However, when the census was taken on 2nd April 1911, Spiridione Grossi was residing in London, recorded as a patient of Dr Michael Longinotto at 10 Russell Square, London. By this date, The Sticky Back & Post Card Studio at 54 North Street, Brighton had been acquired by Abraham Dudkin (born 1876, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia). In April 1913, Spiridione Grossi was no longer working as a studio photographer and appears to have been concentrating on various inventions in the field of automatic photography and electrical engineering. A newspaper article, published in May 1913, states that Spiridione Grossi had been conducting "business in automatic electrical apparatus in several places, including Liverpool, London, Manchester, Brighton, and Brussels". There is evidence from inventions patented by him in 1920 and 1921 that Spiridione Grossi was devising mechanical and electrically powered games that were then a common feature of amusement arcades. (Grossi's patented inventions describe "race games" involving "teddy bear figures climbing poles" and model horses running round a race track). Although he was conducting business in Liverpool, London, Manchester, Brighton, and Brussels, during this final period of his career, Spiridione Grossi resided with his widowed mother and two younger sisters at 77 Paradise Street, Liverpool. Spiridione Grossi died in Liverpool in 1921 at the age of 44. [Death registered in the district of Liverpool during the 2nd Quarter of 1921]. |
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To read a more detailed account of the life and career of Spiridione Grossi and to see further examples of the photographic portraits produced at Grossi's Sticky Backs studio in North Street Brighton, click on the link below: |
To view a collection of 'Sticky Back' photographic portraits produced at Brighton studios between 1910 and 1915, click on the link below: |
Abraham Dudkin and the Sticky Backs Studio in North Street, Brighton (1911-1915)
[ABOVE] Abraham Dudkin (1876-1949), the proprietor of the Stickyback & Post Card Studios from around 1911 until 1915. During the First World War, Abraham Dudkin changed the name of his photography business from Stickyback & Post Card Studios to Modern Studios. Abraham Dudkin operated photographic portrait studios in Brighton and Hove between 1911 and 1925. [PHOTO: Courtesy of Jonathan & Bettina Walker] |
Abraham Dudkin and the Sticky Back Photographic Portrait Studio Abraham Dudkin was born on 10th November 1876 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Abraham was the eldest son of at least fourteen children born to Mira and Moses Dudkin, a Jewish rabbi. Abraham Dudkin arrived in England around 1898. After a number of years working as an itinerant fur dealer, Abraham Dudkin settled in the Sussex seaside resort of Brighton. In 1908, Abraham Dudkin had married twenty-three year old Rachel Hanchen Plaut (born 1885, Wehrda, Germany) and when the couple arrived in Brighton in August 1909, Abraham's wife was expecting their first child. A son named Lewis Stanley Dudkin was born on 24th November 1909. By this date, Abraham Dudkin had established a fur business at 185 Western Road, Brighton under the name of Alfred Dudkin & Co. (Abraham and Rachel Dudkin's second child, Minnie Rosa Dudkin was born in Brighton on 6th June 1913). Around 1911, Abraham Dudkin purchased the Sticky Back & Post Card Studio at 54 North Street, Brighton, previously operated by the photographer and mechanical inventor Spiridione Nicolo Grossi (born 1877, Liverpool). When the 1913 edition of Kelly's Sussex Directory was published, Abraham H. Dudkin was shown as the proprietor of the studio at 54 North Street, Brighton. By this time, Abraham Dudkin had opened a Hampshire branch of the Sticky Back & Post Card Studio at 228 Commercial Road, Portsmouth. Surviving postcard studio portraits carrying the photographer's credit Stickyback & Postcard Studios, 54 North Street, Brighton and 228 Commercial Road, Portsmouth have been found with a postmark date of 1912. Publicity for the Sticky Back & Post Card Studios claim that the company also had a branch studio in London, but no evidence of this has been found and surviving postcards do not give a studio address in London. When Abraham Dudkin purchased Spiridione Grossi's Sticky Back & Post Card Studio at 54 North Street, Brighton, he also acquired the Liverpool-born inventor's apparatus for producing "automatic photographic portraits" on a strip of photo-sensitive paper. Between 1911 and 1915, Abraham Dudkin is known to have produced photographic portraits on continuous strips of photo-sensitive paper, capturing up to six different poses on a single sheet. Examples of Abraham Dudkin's "Sticky Back" strip-photographs are rare, but fortunately a few taken of himself, his wife Rachel and their young son have survived in the Dudkin family archive. (See below for illustrated examples of Dudkin's "automatic" photo-strips, labelled with the "Sticky Backs" trade name). A story handed down by Bluma Dudkin, Abraham's younger sister, suggests that Abraham Dudkin sold the rights to the "Sticky Backs" photographic process to an America-based relative named Gregory Wishniak. According to Natalie Brustin, Bluma Dudkin's daughter, Gregory Wishniak and his nephew Naum (Norman) Sviatachevsky operated a "Sticky Backs" studio in San Francisco during the First World War period. This would have been around 1915, when Abraham Dudkin dropped the "Sticky Back" trade name and re-launched his photography business under the new company name of "Modern Studios". Between 1915 and 1925, Abraham Dudkin operated a number of photographic studios under the trading name of Modern Studios, controlling branches in Brighton, Hove, Shoreham and Portsmouth. After ten years, Abraham Dudkin wound up Modern Studios and from 1926 until his death in 1949, this enterprising businessman concentrated on his fur business. |
[ABOVE] The Brighton photographer Abraham Dudkin (1876-1949), proprietor of the Sticky Backs Studio at 54 North Street, Brighton, pictured with his son Lewis Stanley Dudkin (born 1909, Brighton) in a series of "automatic" photo strips produced around 1913. [PHOTO: Courtesy of Jonathan & Bettina Walker] |
[ABOVE & RIGHT] Complete continuous and uncut photo-strips produced at Abraham Dudkin's Sticky Backs Studio at 54 North Street, Brighton, around 1912. The little boy in the fur hat and coat is the photographer's son Lewis Stanley Dudkin (born 1909, Brighton). The lady in the large hat is Mrs Rachel Dudkin (born 1885, Wehrda, Germany), Abraham Dudkin's wife. [PHOTOS: Courtesy of Jonathan & Bettina Walker] |
Abraham Dudkin's "Sticky Back" Photographs and Automatic Photography in the United States Around 1911, Abraham Dudkin was employing his younger sister Bluma Dudkin at his Sticky Back & Post Card Studio at 54 North Street, Brighton. Bluma Dudkin had been born in Russia on 6th July 1898, but at the age of 13 she had left Russia and, travelling alone, she had made the long journey to England to join her older brother's family in Brighton. Bluma Dudkin assisted her brother in his Sticky Back portrait studio between 1911 and 1914 and so had first-hand knowledge of the Sticky Back photographic process and witnessed visits to the Brighton studio by Russian born friends and relatives who had made a new life in the United States. Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, Bluma Dudkin had returned to Russia. Bluma, who was still only a teenager, travelled across Siberia, making her way to the Far Eastern Republic of Chita and then to Harbin, a city in North-East China. ( Interestingly, Anatol Josepho, the inventor of the coin-operated automatic photo machine, was also living in Harbin around this time). It was during her travels in the Far East that Bluma Dudkin met Paul Nass, a Russian emigrant heading for California. The couple sailed to San Francisco where they were married in July 1918. A daughter named Natalie was born in San Francisco in December 1918. Bluma's daughter Natalie later went on to marry Sidney Brustin. Bluma's daughter, Natalie Brustin was told stories by her mother of the photographic portrait studios in which she had worked as a teenager and as a young woman. According to Natalie Brustin, Russian-born relatives who had emigrated to the United States, visited Abraham Dudkin's Sticky Back & Post Card Studio at 54 North Street, Brighton and had shown a particular interest in the "automatic photographic portraits" being produced with Spiridione Grossi's apparatus. Mira Salumanovitch, Abraham Dudkin's mother, had a sister named Hasia Salumanovitch, who had married Gregory Wishniak, a businessman based in California. The story that was passed down from Bluma Dudkin to her daughter Natalie was that Gregory Wishniak visited Abraham Dudkin in Brighton and witnessed the "Sticky Back" photographic process in action at Abraham's studio at 54 North Street, Brighton. Natalie Brustin maintains that Gregory Wishniak bought the rights to the "Sticky Back" photographic process and opened a photographic studio in San Francisco producing "automatic photographic portraits" based on the "photo-strip" method first introduced by Spiridione Nicolo Grossi. Natalie Brustin recalled that Gregory Wishniak bought Naum (Norman) Sviatachevsky (a nephew of Hasia Salumanovitch) into his automatic photography business. Significantly, another nephew by the name of Anatol Josephewitz (Josepho) also took a strong interest in the "automatic portrait photography" practised by Norman Sviatachevsky in Wishniak's San Francisco studio. The story of these early ventures into "automatic photography" recounted to Natalie Brustin by her mother Bluma Dudkin, suggests a link between Abraham Dudkin's mechanised "Sticky Back" photographic process in Brighton and the coin-operated automatic photographic machine introduced to the citizens of New York in 1925 by Anatol Josepho. [ See the section on Anatol Josepho and the Photomaton below]. Anatol Josepho (apparently a nephew of Abraham Dudkin's aunt) arrived in San Francisco around 1923 and stayed for a time in the home of Paul and Bluma Nass (Abraham Dudkin's younger sister). Anatol Josepho had drawn up plans for his automatic photo machine two years earlier in the Chinese city of Shanghai, but when he arrived in the United States seeking technical advice and equipment, plus investors to provide working capital for his ingenious idea, he took the opportunity to study the "automatic" photographic devices that were then being employed in photographic portrait studios in San Francisco and the film studios of Hollywood. [See the section on Anatol Josepho and the Photomaton below]. It seems likely that while staying with Bluma Nass in San Francisco, Anatol Josepho paid a visit to Gregory Wishniak's "Sticky Back" photographic studio. (It has been suggested by Natalie Brustin that Anatol Josepho had previously met up with Gregory Wishniak in Budapest where both had operated photographic portrait studios). |
[ABOVE & RIGHT] A Sticky Back photo-strip portrait of Abraham Dudkin's wife Rachel and their young son Lewis Stanley Dudkin. (c1912) |
[ABOVE] The Brighton photographer Abraham Dudkin (1876-1949), proprietor of the Sticky Backs Studio at 54 North Street, Brighton, pictured with his son Lewis Stanley Dudkin (born 1909, Brighton) in a series of "automatic" photo strips produced around 1913. [PHOTO: Courtesy of Jonathan & Bettina Walker] |
To read a more detailed account of the life and career of Abraham Dudkin and his younger brother Mordecai Dudkin and to see further examples of the photographic portraits produced at their studios in Brighton & Hove, click on the link below : |
To read an account of Sidney Boultwood and his chain of Stickybacks studios, click on the link below: |
Automatic Portrait Photographs from other Photographic Studios in Sussex |
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[ABOVE] An automatic photographic portrait taken in Worthing around 1912
showing an elderly woman wearing a hat decorated with feathers. This automatic portrait was
produced at 167 Montague Street, Worthing. This small portrait gives the location of the studio as "167 MONTAGUE ST.
WORTHING". [PHOTO: Courtesy of Ben Hall] [PHOTO: Courtesy of Ben Hall] |
[ABOVE] An automatic photographic portrait taken in Worthing around 1912
showing a young woman wearing a wide-rimmed had . This automatic portrait was
produced at 167 Montague Street, Worthing. This small portrait
carries the Photo Reference Y617 and gives the location of the studio as "167 MONTAGUE ST.
WORTHING". [PHOTO: Courtesy of Ben Hall]
PHOTO: Courtesy of Ben Hall] |
[ABOVE] An automatic photographic portrait taken in Worthing around 1912.
The subject of the portrait is believed to be Mrs Mary Wright
(c1826-1920), the widow of Worthing photographer Charles Joseph Wright
(1823-1904). A skilled embroiderer and needle-worker, Mrs Mary Wright
ran a '"Berlin Wool Repository" in South Street, Worthing, during the 1850s,
but later worked as "Miniature Painter" and confectioner. Widowed in 1904,
Mrs Mary Wright died in 1920 at the age of 94. This automatic portrait was
produced at 167 Montague Street, Worthing, around 1912, when Mrs
Wright was in her mid-eighties. This small portrait carries the Photo
Reference H685 and gives the location of the studio as "167 MONTAGUE ST.
WORTHING". [PHOTO: Courtesy of Janice Wright, great, great grand-daughter of Mrs Mary Wright (nee MacWhirter)] |
[ABOVE] An automatic photographic portrait of Arthur Percy Bale
(1895-1916), the son of Frank Bale, "The Bognor Clown". Arthur
Percy Bale enlisted as a Private in the Second Battalion of the Hampshire
Regiment and was killed on the Somme in France on 17th October 1916 at the
age of twenty. This photograph was probably taken at King & Wilson's
Pier Arcade Studio in Bognor, West Sussex, between 1915 and
1916, the year that Arthur Bale set off for France with his regiment.
King & Wilson operated from a studio at 8 Pier Arcade, Bognor
from around 1915 until about 1930. This small photographic portrait carries
the Photo Reference Q34 and gives the location of the studio as "PIER ARCADE
- BOGNOR". (Only the top half of the studio address is visible at the foot
of the print). [PHOTO: Courtesy of Karen Nesbitt, great grand-daughter of Frank Bale] |
[ABOVE] An automatic photographic portrait taken at
No.9 North Street
Quadrant, Brighton, a studio operated by Edward (Edwin)
Walter Simmons (born 1865, Marylebone, London) from 1905 until
1911.
The subject is believed to be a member of the Trott Family of
Brighton. This small photographic portrait carries a Photo Reference Number
(No. 605?) which has been cropped in half in this photograph.
[PHOTOS (left & above): Courtesy of Paul Trott of Worthing]
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Anatol Josepho and the Photomaton - the first practical coin-operated automatic photo booth |
[ABOVE] A main street in the Hungarian city of Budapest, pictured around 1900. In the years leading up to the First World War, Anatol Josepho operated his own photographic portrait studio in Budapest. |
Anatol Josepho (1894-1980) - The Inventor of the Automatic Photo Booth Early Years Anatol Josepho, a Russian Jew from Siberia, was born Anatol Marco Josephewitz, the son of Esther and Marco Josephewitz, on 31st March 1894. Anatol's birthplace is variously given as Omsk or Tomsk, two Siberian cities some 500 miles apart. In an interview given in 1928, Anatol Josepho states: "I was born in the central part of Siberia. I attended grammar schools and later studied at the Institute of Engineering at Omsk". Contemporary newspaper and magazine articles state confidently that Anatol Josepho was born in the Siberian city of Omsk. Anatol Josepho had a particularly close bond with his father, Marco Josephewitz, a jeweller who had lost his wife when Anatol was only three years of age. While studying at the Institute of Engineering in Omsk, Anatol became especially interested in photography and also developed a strong desire to travel. At the age of 15, Anatol informed his father that he wanted to go abroad to study photography. Marco Josephewitz agreed to pay Anatol's rail fare to Germany and encouraged his son's ambitions. According to a a popular magazine published in 1927, Marco Josephewitz said farewell to Anatol with these inspiring words: "Life itself, my son, is the supreme teacher. Go. Travel. Work. Study. Listen...Come back when you will. I'll be waiting for you. And I want to be proud of you when you come back. Remember that, my boy, won't you?". Anatol Josepho later recalled that to continue his studies in photography, he "scraped up enough money" to go to Berlin. In the German capital, Anatol Josephewitz's money ran out, so he found work as an assistant in a Berlin photographic studio, where he trained as a portrait photographer and perfected his skills in developing and printing photographs. Anatol Josephewitz (Josepho) - Professional Photographer in Europe and Asia In 1912, at the age of 18, Anatol Josephewitz took a ship to New York, but not being able to find a suitable job in America, he returned to Europe. Joseph travelled to Hungary and opened his own photographic portrait studio in Budapest. According to Nakki Goranin, author of 'American Photobooth' (2008), even in his teens, Anatol Josephewitz was developing "the idea of creating a faster, more efficient, and less costly way of creating images that would make photographs available to the average working man". At the outbreak of the First World War, Anatol Josephewitz attempted to return to Russia, but was arrested by Hungarian border guards and interned. Anatol later told a reporter that it was "during the long, idle days" in the internment camp that he "conceived the idea of an automatic camera". Eventually, Josepho and a friend escaped from a Hungarian prison camp and, disguised as returning prisoners of war, boarded a troop train to the Ukrainian city of Odessa. When Anatol Josephewitz arrived in Russia in 1918, his home country was controlled by the Bolsheviks, a communist faction that had seized power in the Revolution of October 1917. It was while crossing his native country that Anatol and his companion were arrested by armed Bolsheviks and imprisoned once again. After a couple of daring escapes, Anatol managed to travel by rail to Harbin in Manchuria, where he made some money by buying goods in China and selling them later at "a high profit". By 1921, Anatol Josephewitz, now using the professional surname of 'Josepho', had opened a photographic portrait studio in the Chinese port of Shanghai. During his stay in China, Anatol Josepho was haunted by the "thought of the automatic camera" and in between taking portraits in his Shanghai studio, he worked out the details of his proposed invention. Within a couple of years, Anatol Josepho had completed his designs for an automatic photo machine, but he was not yet in a position to start constructing a prototype. as Josepho later explained in a conversation with Orville Kneen: "By 1923 all I needed was money, and some delicate parts such as optical apparatus. I knew I could get them in America. Like all Europeans, I had heard of the fortunes to be made there. So I sold my studio (in Shanghai) and sailed to San Francisco". |
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Anatol Josepho in the United States |
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[ABOVE] A self-portrait of Anatol Josepho, photographed by one of the automatic photo machines he had invented in 1925. In this self-portrait, taken in a Photomaton automatic photo booth around 1930, Anatol, a tobacco pipe in his left hand, is shown posing with his pet white terrier. [ABOVE] The original design drawing of the Photomaton photo booth filed with the U.S. Patent Office on 27th March 1925 as part of the patent application by Anatol Josepho for "an automatic coin operated photographic apparatus". Josepho had to raise $11,000 from friends, relatives and interested businessmen to get the Photomaton photo booth into production and operating on the streets of New York City. In an interview given in 1927, Anatol Josepho remarked "Incidentally, I may say that those who loaned me the money for an interest in the invention have been well repaid for taking a chance". |
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[ABOVE] A photograph of Anatol Josepho (1894-1980) pictured sitting inside the Photomaton, the automatic photo booth he invented in 1925. One side of the photo booth has been removed to show the workings of the coin-operated machine. The inventor is shown placing a coin in the slot and staring straight ahead at the camera fixed inside the box in front of him. | [ABOVE] A cutaway illustration in the American popular technology magazine Modern Mechanics and Inventions (November 1928), labelling the basic components of the Photomaton, the coin-operated photo booth invented by Anatol Josepho in 1925. The inventor is shown facing the camera and placing a coin in the slot, which will trigger the mechanism. | [ABOVE] Eight shots of Alfred "Al" Smith (1873-1944), the Governor of New York and American Presidential candidate, photographed in Anatol Josepho's photo booth in 1928. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Decline and Fall of the Photomaton Company in Britain
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[ABOVE] Henry Morgenthau photographed in 1927 seated at Anatol Josepho's Photomaton , the first reliable coin-operated automatic photo machine. Anatol Josepho sold the American rights to the Photomaton process to Morgenthau and his business syndicate for one million dollars in 1927. The same year, a group of British investors purchased the rights to distribute the Photomaton automatic photo machines in Europe and Canada. In 1928, the British financier Clarence Hatry acquired the Photomaton Company and formed the Photomaton Parent Corporation. |
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A Brief History of the Automatic Photograph The first steps in automated photography were taken in the year 1889, when Mathew Stiffens of Chicago patented an "automatic photography machine" and Monsieur Ernest Enjalbert demonstrated his coin-operated, automatic tintype machine at the Exposition Universelle, the World's Fair which opened in Paris in May 1889. The automatic photographic machines invented by Mathew Stiffens and Ernest Enjalbert produced photographic portraits on a metal strip (i.e. a ferrotype or "tintype"). During the early 1890s, a German inventor named Conrad Bernitt perfected an automatic photograph machine which he marketed as the Bosco Photographie-Automat. As with the machines devised by Mathew Stiffens in the United States and Ernest Enjalbert in France, Bernitt's Bosco Automat produced photographic portraits on metal, then generally known as ferrotypes. In 1896, Carl Sasse of Vienna patented an "Apparatus for the Automatic Production of Photographs". In his patent application, Carl Sasse stated that the object of his invention was "to produce photographs automatically by the insertion of a certain coin". It appears that Sasse's invention involved a photographic negative and produced photographs on paper. During the first decade of the 20th century, a number of photographers and inventors attempted to devise a mechanism which could produce a set of small photographic portraits on a narrow strip of photographic paper. By 1911, Spiridione Grossi, a Liverpool-born photographer, was producing strips of "Sticky Back" portraits at his studio in North Street, Brighton, but the apparatus was hand-operated and required the presence of a cameraman. The first fully automatic photo-booth, which produced several photographic portraits on strips of photographic paper, opened to the public in New York City during the Summer of 1925. The inventor of the automatic photo booth, Anatol Marco Josepho (1894-1980) created a machine that produced a strip of 8 good quality photographic portraits in 8 minutes. |
[ABOVE] An engraved illustration depicting Ernest Enjalbert's automatic photography machine which he exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in May 1889. Although Enjalbert's coin-operated machine was novel, it proved to be disappointing. According to contemporary accounts, the machines were unreliable and subject to mechanical breakdown. The resulting ferrotype photographs were tiny and of poor quality. |
Automatic Portraits taken by Photoweigh Machines on the Pleasure Piers of Sussex Seaside Resorts |
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[ABOVE] A Photoweigh automatic portrait, photographed in a
kiosk in Hastings in 1937. Inscribed in ink on the on the reverse of
the photographic strip is the date "17/5/1937". The sitter is
identified in pencilled handwriting as "Aunt Mabel".
The Photoweigh machine took a photograph of the customer as he or she sat on a weighing machine. The 1933 edition (Volume 80) of the British Journal of Photography lists Photoweigh Limited as a company registered on 1st June 1933 with the object "to carry on the business of manufacturers and dealers in optical, scientific, photographic and industrial instruments, cinematograph and other films, projectors, cameras and magic lanterns, etc.". |
[ABOVE] A Photoweigh automatic portrait, photographed on Brighton's Palace Pier in 1954. The subject of the photograph is
a young Simon Pettitt. Photoweigh Ltd. had operated an automatic
photo-kiosk in Brighton since the early 1930s.
In his 1938 novel "Brighton Rock", the writer Graham Green mentions that the Photoweigh kiosk was located in the tunnel under the Palace Pier : "the noisiest, lowest, cheapest section of Brighton's amusements. A Photoweigh booth, owned by George Keeble, was situated on Brighton's Palace Pier until 1972. [PHOTO: Courtesy of Simon Pettitt] |
[ABOVE] A Photoweigh double portrait of Cliff Groves (right) and his friend Gil Topping (left) on Brighton's Palace Pier in 1964. Clifford Groves, who still lives in Brighton, explains the circumstances in which the photo was taken: "We were both working the summer season on the Palace Pier. In the "Palace of Fun" there were no gaming machines only what we called "gaffs". These were very similar to fairground stalls. Gil was running a bingo stall and I was on air rifles. The mods and rockers were creating havoc on the seafront the day the smudge (photo) was taken and it was (as the Chinese say) an interesting time - battles galore!" [PHOTO: Courtesy of Clifford Groves] |
Coin-operated Automatic Photo Booths -Successors to Anatol Josepho's Photomaton - the first practical self operating photo-machine |
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Photomatic (1947) |
Photomat (1952) |
Post Office Digital Photobooth (2008) |
Acknowledgements & Sources and Recommended Websites |
I am indebted to Jonathan Walker and his wife Bettina Walker, for providing the biographical details for Abraham Dudkin and other members of the Dudkin Family. Bettina Walker is the grand-daughter of Abraham Dudkin. Jonathan Walker is the son-in-law of the late Lewis Stanley Dudkin (1909-2005), the son of Abraham Dudkin. I am grateful to Bettina Walker, the daughter of Lewis Stanley Dudkin, for allowing me to feature some of the Dudkin family photographs on this website. Information provided by Natalie Brustin, the daughter of Mrs Bluma Nass (Abraham Dudkin's younger sister) has proved very useful. PRIMARY SOURCES: Census returns : 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911 ; Brighton, Sussex and Hampshire Trade Directories: Kelly's Directory of Sussex (1911, 1913, 1915, 1918, 1922, 1924, 1930, 1934, 1938) ; Kelly's Directory of Hampshire (1915, 1920, 1923, 1927). Newspapers, Journals & Magazines: Modern Mechanics and Inventions (November,1928) ; New York Times (28th March,1927) ; Photo-Era Magazine (December,1927) ; British Journal of Photography (1929) ; American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger (22nd April,1927) ; Time magazine (4th April 1927) ; Chemist & Druggist (1928) ; Office Appliances (1927) ; The Wellington Evening Post (24th June 1929 - 2nd January 1930] on the National Library of New Zealand's website Papers Past. OTHER SOURCES: Books: "American Photobooth" by Nakki Goranin (Norton and Company, 2008) ; "Photobooth" by Babbette Hines (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002) ; Newspapers and News websites: The History of the Photobooth by Nakki Goranin on the Telegraph website (7th March 2008); A Picture and a Thousand Words a review of American Photobooth by Ryan Bigge in the Toronto Star (30th March 2008); 'American Photo Booth' Illuminates History Of Invention, Enterprise And Marketing In Coin Industry's Early Years by Tom Sanford on the Vending Times website (February 2008); Articles on websites: The Photobooth: Timeless Self-Portrait Vending Machine (10th August 2006) by Tim Garrett on teachingphoto.com Articles in Journals, Magazines and Exhibition Catalogues: "Penniless Invetor Gets Million for Photo Machine" by Orville H. Kneen in the magazine Modern Mechanics and Inventions (November 1928) ; PHOTOBOOTH: History and Development by Bern Boyle in the catalogue for the exhibition "Photomaton: a contemporary survey of photobooth art" at the Pyramid Arts Center, Rochester, New York (November,1987), reproduced on Wade Tinney's Photobooth.org website. Websites: Records on Family Search website ; Registers of Births, Marriages & Deaths at the FreeBMD website ; National Archives website ; bernardinai.lt Websites devoted to Photo Booths and Photobooth Photos: Photobooth.net - an excellent website, created and maintained by Brian Meacham and Tim Garrett, devoted to all aspects of the photo-booth. Photobooth.org, a website created by Wade Tinney, which features modern photo-booth photographs in Wade's Photobooth Gallery and a section on the history of automatic photo booths. Mark Bloch has provided a useful article entitled "Behind the Curtain: A History of the Photobooth" on his website Panmodern.com. Katherine Griffiths displays her fascinating collection of photobooth photos on her Photobooth Journal blog. [See below for a link to Katherine's website]
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Click here to go to a Webpage Index to Automatic Photographs and Photobooth Photos on Sussex PhotoHistory |
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LINKS TO WEBSITES WHICH FEATURE AUTOMATIC PHOTOGRAPHS AND PHOTOBOOTH PHOTOS |
Katherine Griffiths, an Australian collector of vintage photographs, has created a fascinating blog entitled Photobooth Journal which documents her life in the form of a long-running series of photobooth photos. Katherine includes photobooth photos of herself, friends and members of her family, but she also features photobooth portraits of complete strangers; 'found photos' which have been rescued or salvaged after being discarded by the original sitters. On Katherine's Photobooth Journal blog you will also find classic photobooth portraits from the 1930s, police force mugshots, images of photobooth tokens, artworks inspired by or created with photobooth portraits, and much, much more. I can recommend a visit to Katherine's wonderful blog and photo archive. You can access Photobooth Journal by clicking on the link below: | |