Style & Technique

Curiosity, creativity, and exceptional technical ability, mixed with more than a little humour, defined Hannah Maynard’s photographic practice. Whether she was using multiple exposure to create a photograph featuring three Hannahs, one of whom was pouring tea on the head of another, or a tableau vivant featuring her grandson playing a prank on his unsuspecting grandmother, she was constantly experimenting. The techniques she perfected were then cleverly adapted to her commissioned studio portrait practice. Widely sought by the public for collection into their photo albums and published in newspapers and journals across North America, Maynard’s photographic experiments also served as a tool for self-promotion, driving business to her studio in unique and clever ways.

Multiple Exposures

A multiple exposure occurs when a single light-sensitive photographic negative is exposed to light through the camera’s shutter and lens more than once. It enables scenes to be layered upon each other. In the nineteenth century, many photographers used this technique to tell visual stories. In its simplest form, a photographer could create a double exposure by having the subject change positions during a lengthy exposure, or by covering and uncovering different parts of the lens. This would create an image in which the subjects seemed almost transparent as they overlap one another, or one where the subject apparently has an identical counterpart.

As photographers became more skilled and innovative, they used rotating lens covers and special photographic plates to capture multiple images on different parts of the same negative. These techniques had many applications. In portraiture, subjects could have themselves photographed in multiple poses across a plate without overlap as an economical way of creating a variety of prints without using many costly glass plate negatives. Maynard’s With Mrs. Maynard’s Compliments, c.1895, is an example of this technique. In a single image we have nine different poses of the photographer. The portraits show her from different perspectives and looking in different directions, also glancing up or across at herself.

In addition to using multiple exposures created by using a sliding plate holder, Maynard also experimented with using a paper negative to produce the effect of a curled edge. The bottom curl has “With Mrs. Maynard’s Compliments” written on it. Her experiments with conventional methods of double exposure led her to push its possibilities, creating scenes in which each exposure blended into the first. In Hannah Maynard multiple exposure self-portrait, c.1880–99, we have four exposures which would not be especially impressive until one notices the unbroken garland of flowers that flows between the hands of the figures. To accomplish this, Maynard exposed part of the negative, then covered that area and uncovered a different part. Each time she would take a new position. The garland was likely strung up across the studio and she was careful not to disturb it as she held it a different point. Her care in lighting the scene and precisely moving the lens cover makes any inconsistencies or overlapping of exposures difficult to spot.

This technique of creating multiple medallions by using a sliding plate holder was patented by Americans Albert Sands Southworth (1811–1894) and Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) in 1855 for use with the daguerreotype, and later adapted by French photographer André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (1819–1889) in the 1860s for creating multiple albumen print cartes-de-visite on a single negative. There were not many studio photographers in Canada practising these techniques, save for William Notman (1826–1891) in Montreal, who, unlike Maynard, benefited from having a large staff and studio space at his disposal.

Maynard’s use of multiple exposure was primarily contained to her works made for personal interest—these were typically not for sale. However, she featured many of her experimental self-portraits on the display boards and other tools she used to market her photographic services for clients. Maynard produced studio portraits to keep her business going, but her curiosity and artistry are what make her photographic practice remarkable in her moment and ours.

Tableau Vivant

Maynard did not explicitly refer to any of her works as tableaux vivants (French for “living pictures”), though the phrase is sometimes applied to her photographs by the archives that collected them. Unlike conventional tableaux vivants, which were based on scenes from literature and mythology, Maynard’s highly calculated and technical photographs flowed from the whimsy of her imagination. In Hannah Maynard in a tableau vivant, c.1895, the photographer—through careful posing, the deft arrangement of objects, and the technique of multiple exposure—presents four versions of herself in a scene of domestic activity. The effect is one of dynamic activity, where the Hannahs not only appear to converse with each other but help one another with their work.

The tableau vivant has its origins in performances in which actors come together to produce a static scene. Careful attention is paid to body language and expression, the relationships between figures and props, and lighting and setting. In the visual arts, sculpture and painting have been used to preserve the tableau vivant. Due in part to Queen Victoria’s interest in photography and her creation of tableaux vivants using her own children as actors in the scenes (as in Final and concluding of Tableau of the Seasons, shot by British photographer Roger Fenton [1819–1869] in 1854), the form underwent a revival in the nineteenth century, with photographers creating tableaux vivants in front of the camera that could reach a larger audience.

Photography in its early years seemed like a well-suited medium to record tableaux vivants. Borrowing a form associated with the traditions of theatre and painting also served to strengthen the new medium’s ties to the fine arts. Many nineteenth-century attempts at creating tableaux vivants were heavily contrived, for example the atmospheric allegories in photographs such as The Passing of Arthur, c.1875, by British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879). With the rise of the Pictorialism movement in the twentieth century, highly staged and stylized scenes were all but abandoned in favour of images that conveyed feeling. The life-size scenes of tableaux vivants were also not particularly compatible with the small format of the photographic print, although they worked better with stereoscopes, which produced three-dimensional scenes that could better draw the viewer into an all-consuming scene.

Maynard brought elements of playfulness and humour to her scenes. In Hannah Maynard and her grandson, Maynard McDonald, c.1880–97, we have a multiple exposure of a practical joke in action. The boy’s expressions drive the narrative. On the far left, he looks in bewilderment to the boy on the far right, who dangles an insect on a string over Maynard’s shoulder while she is consumed in a book. The boy in the centre looks at us as if to let us in on the prank.

Montage and Collage

Maynard’s proficiency in developing and printing in the darkroom was as important as her work taking photographs with her sitters in the studio. Key among these techniques were montage (or composite photography) and collage. While she often favoured working with multiple exposure, Maynard sometimes also experimented with montage. In An unknown man and his daughters, 1885, we see the combination of two negatives: one of fabric with flowers; and the other, the portrait of the main two young girls. The ruffles of the girls’ collars and the border of the diamond frame indicate the superimposition of two different negatives.

Montage involves the cutting, assembling, or rearranging of two or more photographic negatives into a new image. This is oftentimes then rephotographed, to create a final, unified image. From this, multiple prints can be made. It is different than multiple exposure, which occurs on a single negative. It is also distinct from collage, which can be solely photographic or use a variety of pre-existing materials, including photographs, paper, fabric, glass, newspaper and magazine clippings, prints, and paintings attached together on a single backing sheet and sometimes added to with pastes, paints, and textured materials.

In the nineteenth century, montage was often referred to as “combination printing” or “composite photography.” There were many instances in which photographers used this technique. It was particularly useful as a way of creating an elaborate image, in which all the parts were equally illuminated and in focus; something difficult to do in a single exposure. It also allowed photographers to bring disparate elements together into a single image, even if they were separated by time and space. Canadian photographer William Notman, for example, invited people to his studio in fancy dress, photographed them separately and then used combination printing to bring them together in large and intricate unified photographs such as Skating Carnival, Victoria Rink, Montreal, 1870. Montage, while often not as illusionistic as multiple exposure works, was still considered a darkroom trick that brought into question the idea of photographic truth.

In addition to montage, Maynard experimented with collage. Her annual Gems of British Columbia greetings drew together thousands of children’s portraits into a single, fanciful image. While the originals do not exist, we can determine that these are collages and not montages by looking at the way printed photographs and other materials—not negatives as with montage—were reassembled and then photographed into a single negative, held up by clips visible on either side of the image.

Playfulness was one reason to utilize montage and collage, but they could also be used more seriously. For example, a montage of several negatives of a landscape could create a makeshift panorama, providing the viewer with a more expansive and immersive sense of place. In an image of the officers of the S.S. City of Kingston, created around 1890, Maynard collages individual portraits that she took with a view of the ship made by her husband, Richard. Cleverly, Maynard uses the smoke from the ship’s stack to bring the elements together using paint (the textures of which are still visible) to continue the plume up into the portraits. After being brought together, the collage was photographed into a single negative and printed as a 6.5 by 4.25 inch (10.8 x 16.5 cm) cabinet card.

Studio Props and Backdrops

A good studio photographer made sure to present their sitters in ways that would best reflect their image of themselves. Props helped to create a photograph that was more than just a likeness, but rather reflected some aspect of an individual’s personality or livelihood, and to this end, Maynard kept a range of objects for her sitters to use. In addition to chairs and tables, there were books to hold, vases to look at, small rocking horses for children to ride, and even a stuffed wolverine.

In the photograph Charles E. Redfern’s children, c.1887, the props help to situate the children within a particular social and economic class. Redfern was a jeweller and clockmaker, an alderman, and an eventual mayor of Victoria. Presenting his children alongside an arrangement of photographs conveys an appreciation of both the arts and science, a learned interest in the world, and a degree of leisure and privilege. However, there was nothing stopping someone from having their portrait made while surrounded by books, even if they might be illiterate.

In addition to props, Maynard’s studio offered a range of painted backdrops, from which a sitter could select one that reflected some aspect of their personality. A backdrop of an indoor parlour would create a very different impression than an outdoor scene. Maynard had both, and more, and it has been suggested that many of them were painted by her granddaughter Laura Lillian (1873–1951), who was frequently involved with the studio. In a glass plate negative of Steve Tingley and his family, produced between 1874 and 1910, we see the edges of the painted backdrop behind the sitters. In printing the photograph, the image would be cropped down to make the family appear as though they are in an interior scene. To the right, you can even see a second backdrop in the shadows behind the first, and to the left, yet another rolled and leaning against the back wall.

Perhaps the most fanciful backdrop that commonly reappears in Maynard’s portraits is a painted background of Siwash Rock, an outcropping located in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. Though not in Victoria, the well-known and notable geographic feature gave photographs a specificity of place uncommon in studio portraiture. Used in a hunting scene and also in a self-portrait of Maynard and a young girl, possibly a granddaughter, it helps tell two different stories. The first, a rugged scene of bush life replete with birds, guns, and driftwood. The second, a leisurely scene of two women in nature, with Maynard consumed by a book and the young girl playing with a toy wagon in the sand. In this version, real rocks brought into the studio complement the painted ones.

The floor of Maynard’s studio was also customizable. One of the two plush rugs brought together for the Tingley family can also be seen in the photograph of Redfern’s children. Other images feature movable printed flooring in different patterns. This type of floor is visible in the hunting scene where it is laid out to cover the rose pattern floor that would later be cropped out. For contemporary archivists and researchers, studio props and settings have been useful tools in determining attribution and dating photographs. In the instance of the Maynard studio, which was sometimes used by other photographers, the distinct rose pattern of the floor tiles, seen here in the hunting scene, has helped scholars to identify photographs made in the studio by others.

Photographic Albums

In the nineteenth century, because photographs were relatively affordable and accessible, people began collecting them. Albums were a good way to keep and organize photographs, along with other mementoes such as notes, letters, illustrated cards, and so forth. These albums told the stories of people’s travels, their families, and their interests. Many of the sitters who had their photograph made at Maynard’s studio did so with the express purpose of placing their portrait in an album. They could also include pictures of landscapes that Hannah Maynard had for sale at her studio.

In addition to creating photographs that would wind up in family albums in Victoria and beyond, Maynard assembled several of her own. As precious keepsakes, these albums featured delicately embossed leather bindings and hardware, and the pages were often embellished with notes and decorative sketches. There is a page from the Photograph Album of the Maynard Family, 1874–99, that is filled with images made by Maynard and others of family members and gatherings. Her family photographs are often more playful than the more composed and stately family portraits Maynard produced for others. Instead, we have the family playing dress up and set into a variety of painted and sketched scenes. But like any album, it also presents ancestral chronology and illustrates familial relationships.

Others in the Maynard family kept albums that reflect their own relationships and interests. Maynard’s son Albert and his wife Adelaide had an album of one hundred cartes-de-visite portraits produced by Maynard, as well as other photographers including Ontario-based W.A. Cooper and Egan’s New Photographic & Portrait Gallery. There are many portraits of Adelaide and each of their children, including daughters Mabel Price Maynard (b.1880), Lille Elizabeth Maynard (b.1884), and sons John Ridgemen Maynard (b.1879) and Richard James Maynard (b.1881), the faces of whom also found their way into Maynard’s Gems of British Columbia greetings. Laura Lillian Maynard, the daughter of George H. Maynard and Mary Elizabeth Davies, and Maynard’s granddaughter, produced her own photographic album in the 1890s that shows familial scenes and the photo studios. The photographs in it are unattributed but are not thought to be Maynard’s. Perhaps these images were Laura Lillian learning photography on her own.

Greetings

The late nineteenth century saw the beginning of the postcard era. This was due, in part, to an act passed by the United States Congress in 1861 that allowed printed cards weighing less than an ounce to be sent by mail without an envelope. Postcards were an inexpensive way to send images to friends and family. Initially featuring sketches or prints, starting in the 1880s postcards increasingly featured photographs. Photographic studios were an important source of postcards and continued to sell them well into the twentieth century, even after Kodak launched the No. 3A Folding Pocket camera in 1903 that allowed anyone to produce a negative that was the same size as a postcard.

Sending an image of travel, whether taken by yourself or more likely purchased from a photographic studio such as Maynard’s, was a new way to share adventures with friends and family at home. Families that settled in Victoria mailed portrait cartes-de-visite or cabinet cards with a similar intention. Portrait of Mr. William Phillips and family, 1881, has a handwritten note on the back: “Mrs. Phillips was the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Edward Milne Sr. Wm Phillips pre-empted sections 28–29, Sooke Land District.” Pre-emption was a method of acquiring provincial Crown land. An image like this sent to a faraway family would provide reassurance of success in this new environment.

The reproducibility of photography made the medium well suited to a variety of popular uses. The cartes-de-visite and the larger cabinet cards that followed them, were immediately and wildly popular as calling cards and collectible items. As travel became more democratized in the nineteenth century, photographic postcards took on a similar popular function. Victoria was a transitory town that had soldiers, surveyors, prospectors, and labourers, among many others, passing through. And for many of these people the Maynard studio was a key stop.

Of her long career Maynard herself remarked that she had photographed almost everyone in Victoria. Her studio was one where the doors were open to babies, sailors, and everyone in between. She took advantage of both a growing city and a growing interest in photography, combining her aptitudes for photographic technical ability and creativity with entrepreneurial savvy. The portraits she produced, many of which circulated from one hand to the next, reflect this legacy.