WAIKATO PHOTOGRAPHIC CLUB.

Waikato Argus, Volume IX, Issue 772, 5 October 1900, Page 2

WAIKATO PHOTOGRAPHIC CLUB.

Last evening the members of this club and also a uumber of their friends met in the Borough Chambers, Cambridge, to hear an address from the Mayor, Mr Buckland, on photography. The chair was occupied hy Mr Jefferies, and amongst those present was a fair number of ladies. It appears Mr Buckland has been a most enthusiastic amateur in the art of photography, and he relates his experiences extending over a period of 37 years, and exhibited views he had taken as far back as 1867, and yet the negatives appeared as good as if they had been taken that day. He was the first to take the celebrated pink terraces, and his collection of negatives taken in the sixties is decidedly unique. Amongst those we noticed were the Supreme Court at Auckland (when it was just finished), several views near Manawatu, and aiso of Auckland in the early days. These negatives should be valuable, for we doubt if any other individual has such a collection. One view that created no small amount of interest was one of the Hamilton railway bridge. It was taken from the bank of the Waikato when the structure was invisible through fog, and yet on the negative the bridge showed out very plainly, Mr Buckland said he was induced to try the experiment through seeing in the papers that a photographer had climbed to the top of one of the Swiss Alps to .take a view, but when he got there everything was obscured by a dense fog. In desperation he exposed the plate, and when he developed it he found, to his surprise, that he had a good photograph of the mountains. Mr Buckland explained that in the early days the amateurs had to do all the work themselves. They could not then purchase everything ready to hand as was the case now, and yet they managed to do good work. He imparted a quantity of very useful information regarding transparencies and enlarging, and at the conclusion lie was accorded a very hearty vote of thanks.