// William Henry Jackson // Historical Society of Gulfport // A Postcard History // John C. Robinson //
William Henry Jackson Glass Plate Collection of Gulfport, 1901-06
The Deep Water Harbor of Gulfport, 1906.
The slide show above, and the 180 degree panorama below, represent five 8x10 glass plates that were scanned to digital, and merged with the latest digital editing software. William Henry Jackson, the photographer, sat his tripod in one position on West Pier, leveled his camera with the horizon, and made five exposures of East Pier. His first 'view' was to the north overlooking the new town of Gulfport, and ended with a view to the south looking out of the mouth of the harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Jackson composed each view to overlap 10% to provide registration of each image with the next to make a 180 degree panorama. It was clearly his intention, representing the largest postcard company in the country, to create a postcard panorama that was popular at the time. We know that the Kodak panorama cameras, with their rotating lens and a curved film plane, and using 620 roll film, were wildly popular, and produced most of the panorama postcards of the day. We also know the Detroit Publishing Co. used a variety of cameras, and indeed employed Kodak Panorama cameras. We don't know why in 1906, William Henry Jackson chose to use 8x10 glass negatives to make his five frame pan. In the early 1900's making prints in a darkroom was limited to contact prints- placing the negative on top of (in contact with) photographic paper to make a print the same size s the negative. There are hand colored/tinted, as well as monochrome, contact prints from individual glass plates. There are also copies of his unique PhotoChromes, and cropped versions for the production of postcards- but nothing of pans from glass plates. Overlapping glass negatives to make a seamless pan from five large plates seems impractical considering the smaller roll film Kodak Panorama cameras were in wide use at the time. It took photography and imaging technology 100 years to catch up to William Henry Jackson's vision.
J. Tomasovsky, Aug. revised 9/12/2015
J. Tomasovsky, Aug. revised 9/12/2015
This 30" x 11' canvas 180 degree panorama is on exhibit at the
Gulfport Museum of History located in the Union Depot Railroad Station in downtown Gulfport.
Gulfport Museum of History located in the Union Depot Railroad Station in downtown Gulfport.
Click image to zoom in.
A 180 degree panorama of the deep water port at Gulfport, 1906
More Jackson contact prints of Gulfport made with 8 x 10 glass negatives
This panorama of the Great Southern Hotel by William Henry Jackson in 1906 was taken on top of the Gulf & Ship Island R.R. Building . The image is a digital reconstruction of 3 of Jackson's 8x10 glass plate negatives, and printed on canvas.
The Detroit Photographic Company was launched as a photographic publishing company in the late 1890s and produced black and white and hand tinted color postcards, prints, and photo albums. The photographs were made by William Henry Jackson using a variety of large field cameras producing glass plate negatives. The firm was known as the Detroit Photographic Co. until 1905 when it became the Detroit Publishing Company.
