A family passion
 

This is a relative showing off an orchid back in the 1940s , quite the sophisticated evening and something I would enjoy.

That's neat! So it looks like orchid growing is something that runs in the family! Do you know if that plant (or piece/descendant of it) is still alive?

I'm not sure, if it was it would be at the Singapore Botanic Garden, as he was one of the founders of the orchid society there.

The woman on the far right has an orchid named after her - Aranda Hilda Galistan, which is still grown at the botanics.

SOOOO COOOL

this is awesome even without the personal connection to you. That just makes it amazing

How wonderful to have this as part of your family history :)

That is so nice. Thanks for sharing that piece of very nice history. This is indeed special.

That's amazing. I wonder when (& what) the first photograph of an orchid flower was.

True! I would also love to know what model camera it was hehehe

By the end of the 1940's there were lots of options, even single-focus-single-aperture point-and shoot.(Kodak) But well before that, there were some excellent professional-grade cameras in a 2.25 inch (56 mm) square format (think Hasselblad), also 4 inch x 5 inch (95 x 120 mm) cameras (with bellows) were used by professionals a lot. This is 1940 not 1840!

To compare with digital, I found this:

"2-1/4" (56mm square) would be 313 MP, and 4x5" (95x120mm) would be 95 x 120 = 11,400 square millimeters = 1,140 MP, with no Bayer Interpolation. A digital camera with Bayer Interpolation would need to be rated at better than 2 gigapixels to see things that can be seen on a sheet of 4x5" film."

Wonderful photo and article by the way!

There's definitely a chance that they may have taken orchid pics with cameras like ----- "Giroux daguerreo" type - supposedly made in 1839, the first 'commercial' camera.

Reference: link

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...amera_1839.jpg

But wouldn't be surprised if an orchid pic was taken during testing of the earliest of early cameras too.

SP. you are about a century off with regard to the technology.

I think that in the 1940's probably something more like the Speed Graphic, that was very popular with press photographers. Speed Graphic - Wikipedia
https://www.ebay.com/b/4-x5-Press-Fi...30/bn_67391427
For the smaller format, Rolleiflex was also popular (along with Hasselblad)

In Singapore that that time, I'd suspect that one of the German cameras was very likely.

Roberta ----- my post was in relation to what possible camera may have been the very first one to have taken a photograph of an orchid flower ----- for the very first time in earth history.

Possibilities are - photograph captured out in the 'wild' with a sort of portable earliest camera. Or an orchid taken into the 'lab' or work-area, where the camera system is located.

It's in relation to this :