Was happy to see the 1939 (First Edition) of the Photo Lab Index show up in my mailbox this morning. It took me a while to notice the 6 pages of typewritten "INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRINTING AND PROCESSING ANSCO COLOR PAPER" folded in half inside the back cover. What I found interesting was what the previous owner had written (multiple times) on the back of the folded instructions:
PHOTOGRAPHER Have your Portrait made. Greenbelt-5846 2-R-London According to Google Books, "Ansco Color Paper" was called "a worthy newcomer" in a 1942 Journal of Photographic Society of America. Interestingly, the instructions refer to how it "may be printed from the usual black-and-white separation negatives or the more recently available complementary color negatives." Perhaps not coincidentally, 1942 was also the year that Kodak introduced Kodacolor, "the first color film that yields negatives for making chromogenic color prints on paper. Roll films for snapshot cameras only, 35 mm not available until 1958". Therefore it appears that a (the?) previous owner of my book was a Londoner and he penciled his (not so creative) advertisement (which appears to me to be sort of an aspiration) not very long after the London Blitz ended (May 1941). I'm not sure what the 2-R designation before "London" means. But it appears that Green Belt refers to an area known as "The Metropolitan Green Belt" which, around London, was first proposed by the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1935. It makes me wonder who this PHOTOGRAPHER was and if he (the penmanship appears to be masculine) ever got to place his ad and take Londoner's portraits. -- “The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness ” ― Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Earth from Above -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
