PHOTOGRAPHIC SALOON, EAST END OF LONDON.
[From a Sketch.]
“One of the reasons why I couldn’t take portraits was, that when I bought my camera at Flemming’s he took a portrait of me with it to show me how to use it, and as it was a dull afternoon he took 90 seconds to produce the picture. So, you see, when I went to work I thought I ought to let my pictures go the same time; and hang me if I didn’t, whether the sun was shining or not. I let my plate stop 90 seconds, and of course they used to come out overdone and quite white, and as the evening grew darker they came better. When I got a good one I was surprised, and that picture went miles to be shown about. Then I formed an idea that I had made a miscalculation as to my time, and by referring to the sixpenny book of instructions I saw my mistake, and by the Sunday—that was five days after—I was very much improved, and by a month I could take a very tidy picture.
“I was getting on so well I got some of my portraits, when they was good ones, put in a chandler’s shop; and to be sure I got first-rate specimens. I used to go to the different shilling portrait galleries and have a likeness of myself or friends done, to exhibit in my own window. That’s the way I got my samples to begin with, and I believe it’s done all over London.
“I kept at this all the winter, and all the time I suppose I earned 30s. a-week. When summer come again I took a place with a garden in the Old Kent-road, and there I done middling, but I lost the majority of my business by not opening on a Sunday, for it was a religious neighbourhood, and I could have earned my 5l. a-week comfortable, for as it was I cleared my 2l. regular. Then I had a regular tent built up out of clothes-horses. I stopped there till I had an offer of a good situation, and I accepted of it, at 2l. a-week.
“My new place was in Whitechapel, and we lowered the price from a shilling to sixpence. We did well there, that is the governor did, you know, for I’ve taken on the average from 60 to 100 a-day, varying in price from sixpence to half-a-guinea, and the majority was shilling ones. The greatest quantity I ever took was 146 in one day, and 124 was taken away as they was done. The governor used to take 20l. a-week, and of that 8l. clear profit, after paying me 2l., the men at the door 24s., a man and woman 29s., and rent 2l. My governor had, to my knowledge, 11 other shops, and I don’t know all of his establishments; I managed my concern for him, and he never come near us sometimes for a month.
“I left on my own accord after four months, and I joined two others on equal shares, and opened a place of my own in Southwark. Unfortunately, I begun too late in the season, or I should have done well there; but at first we realised about 2l. a-week each, and up to last week we have shared our 25s. a-head.
“Sunday is the best day for shilling portraits; in fact, the majority is shilling ones, because then, you see, people have got their wages, and don’t mind spending. Nobody knows about men’s ways better than we do. Sunday and Monday is the Derby-day like, and then after that they are about cracked up and done. The largest amount I’ve taken at Southwark on a Sunday is 80—over 4l. worth, but then in the week-days it’s different; Sunday’s 15s. we think that very tidy, some days only 3s. or 4s.
“You see we are obliged to resort to all sort of dodges to make sixpenny portraits pay. It’s a very neat little picture our sixpenny ones is; with a little brass rim round them, and a neat metal inside, and a front glass; so how can that pay if you do the legitimate business? The glass will cost you 2d. a-dozen—this small size—and you give two with every picture; then the chemicals will cost quite a halfpenny, and varnish, and frame, and fittings, about 2d. We reckon 3d. out of each portrait. And then you see there’s house-rent and a man at the door, and boy at the table, and the operator, all to pay their wages out of this 6d.; so you may guess where the profit is.
“One of our dodges is what we term ‘An American Air-Preserver;’ which is nothing more than a card,—old benefit tickets, or, if we are hard up, even brown paper, or anythink,—soap wrappings, just varnished on one side. Between our private residence and our shop, no piece of card or old paper escapes us. Supposing a party come in, and says ‘I should like a portrait;’ then I inquire which they’ll have, a shilling or a sixpenny one. If they prefer a sixpenny one, I then make them one up, and I show them one of the air-preservers,—which we keep ready made up,—and I tell them that they are all chemicalized, and come from America, and that without them their picture will fade. I also tell them that I make nothing out of them, for that they are only 2d. and cost all the money; and that makes ’em buy one directly. They always bite at them; and we’ve actually had people come to us to have our preservers put upon other persons’ portraits, saying they’ve been everywhere for them and can’t get them. I charge 3d. if it’s not one of our pictures. I’m the original inventor of the ‘Patent American Air-Preserver.’ We first called them the ‘London Air-Preservers;’ but they didn’t go so well as since they’ve been the Americans.