The Tighsolas social studies and media literacy website, about a Canadian family in 1910, contains a wide-variety of early photographs, tintypes, crayon drawings, early 'snapshots' and many fine studio shots, some taken by Canada's finest photographic studios like Notman. Notman was the official photographer of the Montreal elite.

The ads for Kodak Film or Brownie cameras in magazines of the time were most interesting.  "Good wholesome fun" claims a Kodak ad from around 1905 showing two boys skiing and taking nature photographs. Clearly, back then, people assumed males would be most interested in taking photographs, but worried about what aspects of nature boys might choose to photograph. Some things never change!  (Not true, in Marion's 1907 diary one entry describes 'fooling around taking pictures'.)The camera is by design a voyeuristic technology--you can't get around that. But it's much more than that. Years ago, in the 70's, in a film class in college, I recall a student going up to the teacher all excited about the newest technology on the horizon, the personal video camera. The teacher, a filmmaker himself, deflated the boy by saying that home video was a bad idea and would be used only for you-know-what--and he didn't mean for filming endless reels of baby drooling, cooing, and dumping spaghetti over her cute little bald head.

The Nicholsons left behind many beautiful photos of themselves. (They didn't label the pictures, which is sad, because many people in the photos are unknown.) Oddly, my descendants will have only one studio photo of me with my husband and young kids, and a lot of horrible candid shots of me, bleary-eyed and scowling, unless I destroy them first. The easier it gets to take a picture, the less 'studied' they become. Here's a link to an essay I wrote for the Globe and Mail about the Tighsolas photos and the modern digital age.  One of Canada's top filmmakers replied the next day in a letter to the editor that I had 'nailed the topic'

This page contains a "Butch Cassidy Style" shot of Norman Nicholson from the 1870's with his sisters and a studio shot of the very pretty Margaret.

This page contains a variety of family snapshots

This page contains a Crayon Drawing from around the 1870's of John McLeod, Margaret's Dad and also the tintype that it was drawn from. See how the charcoal artist 'cleaned him up'!

Here's a tintype of Mary Pinckney Hardy and sister Elizabeth from 1870. She was MacArthur's Mom and my husband's great great aunt.

Here is an early portrait  of either her or sister Elizabeth.

This page has gorgeous hunting photos of  Thomas Hardy Fair in 1905. Many artsy shots.

Here's  a 1902 studio shot of the Nicholson family.

Here's a cute studio shot of young 6 year old Marion, with her bucket.

Click here for 1910 articles on Photography in Technical World Magazine

Here's a link to the Film and Photography Index Page of Tighsolas… All about the Menace of the Motion Picture in 1910, Richmond Quebec native Mack Sennett, Mary Pickford's New York Hat  and much more.