An amazing set of lantern slides

Let me tell you a story. It was late December 1993, I had just finished my Degree in Photographic Arts and was living back at home for a while. Spending the morning mooching around the flea market at Rochester, I came across a stall selling old photography equipment. I was, and still am, a sucker for vintage cameras, so I stopped to browse. The most intriguing item on the stall was an old wooden box holding glass plate slides (lantern slides), each for £1.

I picked one out to take a closer look, holding it up to the light. The copperplate writing told me it was the Mostar Bridge, Herzegovina. The name was very familiar: only a month earlier, that bridge had been blown up during the Croat-Bosnia war. I bought the lot for the bargain price of £15 and took them home with me.

Once at home, I could look at the slides properly. It was then that I realised what a lucky find it was. Not only were they lantern slides of the region, conveniently titled and numbered, but there was also a map with the photographer’s journey inked in. In addition, there was a slide of a letter to the photographer in Serbo-Croat dated 29th July 1896. The letter was entitled ‘Letter from army’ and the photo directly before it was of a rag-tag band of soldiers.

Coast of Dalmatia

Letter from army

What I had bought was someone’s documentation of a trip in the 1890s to places that were now being ravaged by war. Looking at each shot, I saw buildings, people and traditions now long gone. I still find it incredibly emotionally powerful and it underlines exactly why I adore photography.

I am most affected by the images of people. They are dressed in unfamiliar clothes and living a wholly different life; yet I can study them in great detail because someone understood the importance of capturing them in that moment: immortalising them in a still image.

Herzegovina, Mostar

Native Minstrel, Cattaro

It sounds odd, but these slides have led me on my own adventures too. I have visited Croatia and Montenegro to go to some of the sights in the photos. I’ve met and talked with professors who know a lot about the region. I’ve gained many happy hours, researching and looking at them.

I will write some more blogs about these images, there are more than 70 of them, and there are some absolute beauties in there that I want to show you.

In the meantime, don’t forgot that the photographs of today will elicit this reaction from someone in the future. Never underestimate the power of the image.