Volunteer Blog

We are lucky to have a number of volunteers working with the Heritage Trust – an invaluable resource to any charity. Here is a snapshot from one of our current volunteers, Nick, to give you an idea of what goes on in the background:

I’ve been interested in photography for as long as I can remember so when I was given the opportunity to volunteer at W.W.Winter at Midland Road in Derby I jumped at the chance. Having just retired I wanted something to keep my mind active but also to be involved in something useful. I persuaded my wife, Sue, to join me in this little challenge and together we attended an enrolment evening at Winters where we were led through a portal into the past, a history of photography in Derby. Well, my appetite was well and truly whetted and I couldn’t wait to get started. Sue and I attended a further brief session at Midland Road along with several other like-minded friends of the W.W.Winter Heritage Trust where we were shown how to clean, sort, scan and log glass plate negatives; it’s a mammoth task.

Archive image of vehicles from W W Winter
One of the old images from W W Winter of old tractors, scanned and archived by Nick and Sue

There are thousands of glass negatives dating back to the early years of W. W. Winter. So far Sue and I have helped to catalogue hundreds of glass plates, mainly from the 40’s/50’s. There are a lot of weddings and domestic events to catalogue but every now and again a commercial gem appears. Sue and I have just scanned several glass slides of machinery and vehicles involved in a land drainage scheme near Ashbourne in 1956; a little mundane you may think but the vehicles and machinery of are of interest to me, so the research of a particular area or event, or even the company involved, sit side by side with the photographs as some documentation still exists.

From the same image, a Land Rover, a van, and a truck

At the moment my wife and I spend one morning per week at Midland Road and I can honestly say it’s an enjoyable and interesting experience cleaning, scanning and logging glass negatives which were last looked at over 60 years ago. My wife enjoys seeing the clothes worn during the period, my interest is the vehicles so we both derive pleasure from the experience whilst offering our time.

As a retired fireman I’m hoping that one day I’ll come across old firefighting equipment or fire stations lost and forgotten both Borough, City and hopefully private brigades.

 

Dr Michael Pritchard – Derby, The Royal Photographic Society and the History of Photography

The Trust was delighted to host a highly information and equally enjoyable talk from Dr Michael Pritchard of The Royal Photographic Society. His talk covers the history of photography through the lens of Derby’s involvement.

The talked was filmed by Dr Mark Hall (senior lecturer in commercial photography at Derby University). We are grateful to both Michael and Mark for allowing us to share the video on our blog.

If you like what you see, please consider becoming a member of The W W Winter Heritage Trust, or a heritage volunteer, to ensure the conservation of our archive continues. Contact us on friends@wwwinter.co.uk or phone W W Winter Photographers on +44 1332 345224.

Please note this talk is copyrighted to Dr Michael Pritchard – please contact us if you would like to host the talk on your own platform.

https://derby.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?tid=b8ed8f4b-7268-4358-8563-a9b401815351

Dr Michael Pritchard Talk 12 December 2018
Dr Michael Pritchard of The Royal Photographic Society gives a talk for The W W Winter Heritage Trust on Wednesday 12 December 2018 at Derby University. Image thanks to Dr Mark Hall.