“It’s ingenious, but totally impractical,” Colin Harding emphasises, and then with a kind of respectful glee adds, “It’s such a stupid idea, really.”
Harding, the curator of photographic technology at the National Media Museum, is discussing why the Thompson Revolver Camera is one of his favorite items in the museums photo technology collection. He appreciates the craftsmanship and ingenuity but he clearly loves the “total lack of common sense” that went into this 1862 invention. As he says, “If you can across someone who was waving this in your direction, the last thing you’d want to do is smile.”
In the second half of this video, Harding delves nicely into concepts related to the history of photography in the 1860s, illuminating an era when making photographs was as challenging as it was rare. Back then, having any picture-making device pointed at you could be unnerving — but nothing as unnerving as a gun itself, even if a camera.
If you haven’t heard it yet, you will soon. For now it’s still secret, but by the end of the week the entire world will be abuzz with the latest, most unbelievably shocking news in the history and photography, and one of the greatest historical discoveries in it’s own right: