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ARCHIVED - Framing Canada:
A Photographic Memory

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Essays

Portraiture

Gallery - The Face of Amateur Photography

Amateur portraits could take many forms. Some were casual, or shot in a snapshot style. Others, like James Ballantyne's striking 1892 image, were highly composed, and attempted to mimic the conventions of professional studio portraits. Interestingly, the only detail that identifies Ballantyne's image as the work of an amateur is the fact that we can see the world beyond his makeshift studio, which would have been eliminated in a professional product.

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Photograph of two girls and a boy posed front of a blanket fastened to the side of a wooden building, Ottawa, 1892

Hilda Murray and Babs and Joe O'Gara
Ottawa, Ontario, 1892
Photographer: James Ballantyne
PA-131933
Source

Photograph of a young girl wearing a dark dress, 1905

Young girl in dark dress, 1905
Unknown location, 1905
Photographer: Harold Mortimer-Lamb
PA-126984
Source

Photograph of a young woman standing on a porch and holding a flower while her dog stretches out at her feet, Woodstock, Ontario, date unknown

Marie Brooks and her dog
Woodstock, Ontario, unknown date
Photographer: William James Topley
PA-010809
Source

Photograph of an Inuit couple, with other Inuit in the background, Northwest Territories, circa 1920s

Inuit couple
Unknown location, Northwest Territories (now Nunavut),
ca. 1920s
Photographer: F.D. Henderson
PA-186863
Source