A Winter Gallery — American Museum of Photography (SM)

Well G. Singhi (Binghamton, New York)

“A Winter Scene”

Albumen Print, 4 x 6.2 inches, circa 1874

This artfully-created scene shows a newsboy with a bag of papers at his side, engaging in a snowball fight. The action is simulated, including the incoming snowball that’s about to be blocked by the newsboy’s elbow.

This photograph was created entirely in a studio. It was bound into a photographic magazine and distributed to subscribers — a difficult job requiring thousands of original prints like this one. Such sample photographs served an educational purpose, showing photographers all over the country what their compatriots were doing.

Perhaps this image, or another like it, helped to touch off the craze for studio portraits with ersatz snow.

Singhi exhibited at the Fifth Exhibition of the American Photographic Association, held in Buffalo, New York in 1873. The following year, Singhi’s studio was destroyed by fire — an all-too-common occurence during the years in which highly flammable chemicals were needed to make photographs.

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