James Ricalton | |
|---|---|
 Self portrait of James Ricalton on the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt | |
| Born | Waddington, New York, May 13, 1844 |
| Died | October 28, 1929 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Photographer, inventor, teacher |
James Ricalton (May 13, 1844 in Half Way, near Waddington, New York - died in Waddington October 28, 1929) was an American school teacher, traveler, inventor, and photographer. Ricalton travelled extensively and he circumnavigated the world seven times. [1]
After briefly attending St. Lawrence University (class of 1871) Ricalton left before taking a degree and moved to Maplewood, New Jersey in 1871 for a 12-week, $200 contract as a school teacher. Contrary to practice at the time, his contract was renewed repeatedly until he became the district's first permanent school teacher and eventually principal. His legacy is celebrated in the South Orange-Maplewood School District. [2]
Ricalton was locally famous for his habit of conducting classes outdoors in good weather and for his gentle manner. Among other things, a central square in Maplewood village is named after him, and there is a large mural of his outdoor classes in Maplewood municipal hall. [2]
He expanded his house on Valley Street in Maplewood to house his enormous collection. When the township of Maplewood declined to accept his collection as a gift, he moved it all in two and a half train cars to his birth town of Waddington, where he spent his last five years. [2]
By profession a school teacher, Ricalton's passion was travel photography. Every summer, while on vacation from his school, he embarked on journeys overseas using a wheelbarrow-like cart large enough to transport his photography equipment by day, and to sleep in by night. It was designed such that during rainy weather Ricalton could stand in a well in the middle and continue walking under the cart's cover. Using this system, he visited Iceland, the Amazon and the St. Petersburg region of Russia, bringing back thousands of photographs, mineral specimens, and curios. His voyages came to the attention of local inventor Thomas A. Edison, who financed an expedition to search the Far East for a bamboo filament suitable for use in the incandescent lamp. Ricalton took a one-year leave of absence from teaching, and departed the United States in February 1888, arriving in Ceylon on April 1, via the Suez Canal.
Ricalton visited every part of the island, testing hundreds of samples, and continuing on to British India, Singapore, China and Japan, becoming an expert in the properties of various types of bamboo. He returned home one year after his departure, with hundreds of samples for Edison, and recommendations on the two most suitable. This filament was used by Edison for nine months until the suitability of tungsten was discovered. [4]
Ricalton was a prolific photographer, leaving over 100,000 images, among them a large collection of stereoscopic images. [2] He quit his teaching job in 1891 to become a professional photographer and war correspondent. For the next 15 years he photographed and recorded events such the Spanish–American War (1898–1899) in the Philippines, during the Boxer Rebellion (1900) in China, and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) in Manchuria. When Ricalton tried to take pictures of Japanese soldiers in trenches during the Port Arthur campaign, he was held in custody until Major Yamaoka of General Nogi's staff confirmed that the American photographer could take pictures of whatever he wanted. [1]
He was amongst the photographers who recorded the 1903 Delhi Durbar which celebrated the installation of Edward VII as Emperor of India. [5]
Ricalton's photographs earned him numerous honors and many were used to illustrate textbooks. He sold his images to the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Many of his photographs were used by the Underwood & Underwood to illustrate geography books. [1]
In 1909, at age 65, he walked from Cape Town to Cairo, a distance of 4,500 miles averaging 30 miles a day. An extant diary confirms his daily itinerary through South Africa, Rhodesia, and Kenya. [6]
In 1912, Ricalton was sent on another assignment by Edison to test a motion picture camera in Africa, filming among other things a whaling expedition off Cape Town. His son Lomond accompanied him on this trip but died from typhoid fever there, and this was Ricalton's last trip. [2]
Ricalton retired to his home town of Waddington, New York, where he died October 28, 1929, at the age of 85.
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson was a British inventor who devised an early motion picture camera under the employment of Thomas Edison.
Stereoscopy is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word stereoscopy derives from Greek στερεός (stereos) 'firm, solid', and σκοπέω (skopeō) 'to look, to see'. Any stereoscopic image is called a stereogram. Originally, stereogram referred to a pair of stereo images which could be viewed using a stereoscope.
3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of special glasses worn by viewers. They have existed in some form since 1915, but had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion picture industry because of the costly hardware and processes required to produce and display a 3D film, and the lack of a standardized format for all segments of the entertainment business. Nonetheless, 3D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in American cinema, and later experienced a worldwide resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s driven by IMAX high-end theaters and Disney-themed venues. 3D films became increasingly successful throughout the 2000s, peaking with the success of 3D presentations of Avatar in December 2009, after which 3D films again decreased in popularity. Certain directors have also taken more experimental approaches to 3D filmmaking, most notably celebrated auteur Jean-Luc Godard in his film Goodbye to Language.
A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image.
Carleton E. Watkins (1829–1916) was an American photographer of the 19th century. Born in New York, he moved to California and quickly became interested in photography. He focused mainly on landscape photography, and Yosemite Valley was a favorite subject of his. His photographs of the valley significantly influenced the United States Congress' decision to preserve it as a National Park.
Chronophotography is a photographic technique from the Victorian era which captures a number of phases of movements. The best known chronophotography works were mostly intended for the scientific study of locomotion, to discover practical information for animal handlers and/or as reference material for artists. Although many results were not intended to be exhibited as moving pictures, there is much overlap with the more or less simultaneous quest to register and exhibit photographic motion pictures.
Random-dot stereogram (RDS) is stereo pair of images of random dots which, when viewed with the aid of a stereoscope, or with the eyes focused on a point in front of or behind the images, produces a sensation of depth, with objects appearing to be in front of or behind the display level.
Stereopsis is the component of depth perception retrieved through binocular vision. Stereopsis is not the only contributor to depth perception, but it is a major one. Binocular vision happens because each eye receives a different image because they are in slightly different positions on one's head. These positional differences are referred to as "horizontal disparities" or, more generally, "binocular disparities". Disparities are processed in the visual cortex of the brain to yield depth perception. While binocular disparities are naturally present when viewing a real three-dimensional scene with two eyes, they can also be simulated by artificially presenting two different images separately to each eye using a method called stereoscopy. The perception of depth in such cases is also referred to as "stereoscopic depth".
Precursors of film are concepts and devices that have much in common with the later art and techniques of cinema.
The South Orange-Maplewood School District is a regional public school district, serving students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade from the suburban communities of South Orange and Maplewood, two municipalities in Essex County, New Jersey, United States.
Felice Beato, also known as Felix Beato, was an Italian–British photographer. He was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. He is noted for his genre works, portraits, and views and panoramas of the architecture and landscapes of Asia and the Mediterranean region. Beato's travels gave him the opportunity to create images of countries, people, and events that were unfamiliar and remote to most people in Europe and North America. His work provides images of such events as the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Second Opium War, and represents the first substantial body of photojournalism. He influenced other photographers, and his influence in Japan, where he taught and worked with numerous other photographers and artists, was particularly deep and lasting.
The Dragon Throne was the throne of the Emperor of China. As the dragon was the emblem of divine imperial power, the throne of the Emperor was known as the Dragon Throne. The term can refer to very specific seating, as in the special seating in various structures in the Forbidden City of Beijing or in the palaces of the Old Summer Palace. Metonymically, "the Dragon Throne" can also refer to the Chinese sovereign and to the Chinese monarchy itself. The Daoguang Emperor is said to have referred to his throne as "the divine utensil."
Underwood & Underwood was a producer and distributor of stereoscopic and other photographic images, and later was a pioneer in the field of news bureau photography.
The Keystone View Company was a major distributor of stereographic images, and was located in Meadville, Pennsylvania. From 1892 through 1963 Keystone produced and distributed both educational and comic/sentimental stereoviews, and stereoscopes. By 1905 it was the world's largest stereographic company. In 1963 Department A and the Education Departments were closed down, but Keystone continued to manufacture eye-training stereographic products as a subsidiary of Mast Development Company. In 1972 Mast closed the Meadville manufacturing site.
William Pumphrey was an early photographer based in York.
Thomas Richard Williams was a British professional photographer and one of the pioneers of stereoscopy.
Benjamin West Kilburn was an American photographer and stereoscopic view publisher famous for his landscape images of the nascent American and Canadian state, provincial, and national parks and his visual record of the great migrations at the end of the nineteenth century. Kilburn was a legislator in the New Hampshire General Court. A patent was granted for his gun-style camera.
Edward Bierstadt was a photographer of portraits and landscapes as well as an engraver and a pioneer of color photography in the United States.
A Village Lost and Found: Scenes in Our Village by T. R. Williams is the full title of a book released in 2009 by Brian May and Elena Vidal. The book is an annotated collection of stereoscopic photographs taken by the Victorian era photographer T. R. Williams. It is sold with an OWL focussing stereoscope designed by Dr. May.
George Barker was a Canadian-American photographer best known for his photographs of Niagara Falls.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
