Charlotte street, St. Augustine, Florida

Animals, Donkeys, Architecture, Buildings, Cityscape, Roadways

Dimensions

Image Dimensions: 16.2 x 13.6 cm | published March 7, 1890 | issue No. 442
Support Dimensions: 28.7 x 20.5 cm

Editorial comment on this plate:

We continue our series of notable prize winners at exhibitions of the Photographers’ Association of the America by presenting our readers this week with Mr. George Baker’s Street Scene in St. Augustine, Florida.
The view shows a part of Charlotte Street in the old Spanish quarter of the picturesque town, and was made in 1886, “just before the work of improving out of existence all the old landmarks of the ancient city was commenced,” as Mr. Baker tells us. “The houses seen in the picture,” he writes, ” are old, built of the natural coquina (a shell conglomerate), formerly quarried out of blocks, like stone, on Anastasia Island opposite the city. At the present time an artificial coquina is made from shells and cement, and is much used for building purposes.”
The scene chosen and saved by our artistic friend, with, its coquina houses, its moss-grown roofs, and old Spanish balconies nearly meeting over the street, is a typical one of that old St. Augustine whose quaint nooks and corners have been a curiosity and a pleasure to visitors for many years. Such scenes, unfortunately, are becoming more difficult to find in this picturesque old town, as it is being rapidly altered and modernized.
The negative was made on a Cramer plate, with a Darlot Single View lens. It is a copyrighted picture and has won many prizes. Mr. Barker received a gold medal for his collection at the Paris Exposition last summer, a gold medal at Boston, the special grand prize of a diamond badge at the P. A. of A. Convention in 1887, and a special prize silver medal in Germany in 1886. Mr. Barker has been awarded in all eleven first prize medals. He belongs in the very front rank of landscape photographers not only of this country but of the entire world. He is skillful in interior work also, for which he received the first medal of the Photographers’ Association of America in 1888.
We are happy to give our readers a specimen of Mr. Barker’s photography. Later, we shall hope to give them another picture by the same gifted photographer.
The reproduction was done by the Photo-Gravure Company, in gelatine, and reflects great credit on the process employed.