Title: Photograph – ‘Queenstown 1903′ panorama – Platinum photograph by Melvin Vaniman
Description: 1 photographic print
Format: Photograph
ADRI: NS1711-1-2122
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania
Series: The Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Co – Company Records, 1884 – 1995 (NS1711)
Notes: 1884 – 1995
Taken from a tethered balloon at Battery Point by Melvin Vaniman, travelling photographer, of the Hobart wharves.
From the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection catalogue 2006:
Enlarged detail:Q344zz1 Q344
ITEM NAME: Photograph print:
MEDIUM: Platinotype Chromatype Salted paper prints – panorama photograph,
MAKER: Melvin Vaniman [Artist];
TITLE: ‘Panorama of Hobart from Runneymede Street Battery Point and the wharves to Old Wharf [Hunter Street], ‘
DATE: 1904
Panorama: Q6079ITEM NAME: photograph:
MEDIUM: Platinotype,
TITLE: ‘Panorama of Hobart from Runneymede Street Battery Point and the wharves to Old Wharf [Hunter Street], taken from a balloon over Hobart’
DATE: 1904c
HISTORY: Melvin Vaniman (1870-1912) , an American itinerant, specialising in large format ‘Cirkut’ panoramas, taken with specially designed rotating cameras and oversized negative film. The result was printed onto specially sensitized matte platinotype paper by contact. This view was probably taken from a captive balloon imported from America by Vaniman. He died in his balloon the Akron in 1912. Contact print taken from a film made with a “Cirkut” camera. The Cirkut camera was patented in 1904 and used large format film ranging in width from 5″ to 16″ and was capable of producing a 360 degree photograph measuring up to 20 feet long. Both the camera and the film rotated on a special tripod during the exposure.
