Cataloguing the Beattie’s Studio Collection

One of the containers

The Beattie’s Studio Catalogue Background

John Watt Beattie (1856-1930) was a Tasmanian photographer who operated a business called “Beattie’s Studio” from 1892. That business also incorporated material from previous photographers dating back to c1849. Beattie operated a museum of physical objects, mostly related to Port Arthur. The complete story is available on the web site;

https://www.beattiesstudio.com/history-of-beatties-studio

Upon his death in 1930, the business was operated by his cousin, Jack Cato, and then Frank Cane and was purchased by the Stephenson family in 1934. It has remained in the family ever since. I am John Stephenson and I’m the third generation of our family to own Beattie’s Studio.

Prior to his death, Beattie’s Port Arthur Museum was sold to the Queen Victoria Museum (QVM) in Launceston. Further items were later sold to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG). There was a fire in the Murray Street premises of Beattie’s Studio in 1933 and some photographic material was lost. Jack Cato (Beattie’s cousin) wrote that “everything was destroyed save a few singed prints” which is untrue. Considerable material survives.

There are two shipping containers full of items from Beattie’s Studio. These items include cameras, lenses, darkroom equipment, manufacturing equipment, lighting, signs, display racks, original photographs produced prior to 1993, approximately 330 framed photographs produced c2000-2018, approximately 10,000 historic negatives dated c1849-1970 (with the bulk being 1870-1930) and some books.

None of these items have been catalogued or indexed in any way, with the exception of approximately 5000 negatives that have been digitised and catalogued in Adobe Lightroom and published on www.BeattiesStudio.com

The Beattie’s Studio portrait photographs have been donated to the Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Odice (TAHO). These consist of weddings, studio photographs, passports, and events such as Miss Tasmania. There are approximately 100,000 of these and they are indexed in books called the register. These no longer form part of the Beattie’s Studio Collection as described herein.

I have been digitising the historic negatives since 2013, with the bulk of the work done 2013-2018. Since then, progress has been slowed by family matters and shifting priorities. It started with the death of AA Stephenson (my father) and I don’t want it to end when my time comes. I feel the need to contribute to Beattie’s legacy as every generation of my family has done since 1934, but someone else can finish this. I think I’m done. I’m not sure I have the physical dexterity/health to carry on with the digitising.

There are thousands left to do, let alone the prints, slides, films and personal (family) material.

On a more positive note, I have specified the project and figured out what needs to happen next. There’s a dedicated audience for Beattie’s material and the video series (Forgotten Tasmania www.YouTube.com/forgottentasmania ) that I have produced has gained significant attention. The Beattie’s web site continues to gain tradic as well as sell digital downloads. The retail outlets (Winnings Newsagency and Sorell Antiques) are selling a modest amount of framed prints and there is the occasional income from licencing of Beattie’s images.

To say the collection is forgotten would be untrue. To continue, it needs a better home than the containers and some way for the public to enjoy it.

I suppose I have a pipe dream of someone like David Walsh (MONA) swooping in and buying the collection, but frankly I’d settle for TMAG if I thought they would ever display more than one or two pieces. QVM has Beattie’s Port Arthur Museum. I have photos of the museum before they acquired it. There are hundreds of objects. I’ve never seen more than a handful in Launceston. I presume the rest is in storage. This collection is already in storage, I want something better for it.

Project Overview

What I’ve been calling “the metadata project” has become the Beattie’s Studio Catalogue, a multimedia database of photos, metadata, locations, history, cameras, artefacts, historical objects, photographic tools, and products. All goes into a database. Maybe e-Hive? That’s what Trove uses.

To create the database, I need to;

1. Photograph and catalogue the physical items in the containers; cameras, darkroom, enlargers etc.

2. Systematise the Beattie’s digitising process. Re-start the digitising and document the process thoroughly.

3. Connect the LR catalogue to the database. It would be nice if that was bi- directional, but maybe not possible? Maybe the end step in the LR part of the process is to publish a TIFF to a filesystem and import a thumbnail with metadata to the database?

I should hire someone, but I need to document the process so I can train them. Systematise it first by making a training course. I should have an assistant/apprentice that I can work out the process with to create the process documentation. It might play to my skills to make a video course (e.g. Skillshare, Brilliant, Udemy etc) about how the Beattie’s catalogue process works. Include Lightroom, metadata, history and feed it into the database.

I need to bring in apprentices, but where can I find people that might be interested? Publish a course. The alfa tester person that I explain everything to can help me do some, might even turn into an apprentice. Whatever happens, if the course gets published or not, there will be a record of how to do this and someone can carry on. The data will be in a museum friendly format that TAHO or TMAG can easily use. The physical objects (cameras etc) will be photographed and catalogued. The collection will be a collection rather than a container full of possibilities. It could be sold or passed on or published or used as a museum. This cataloguing is really the very first step. I can’t know what to do with the collection until I catalogue it, so I know what I have.

Anti-Social Media

This will be my piece on social media and the changes I’m making to my web site, YouTube, Vimeo, Patreon and BeattiesStudio.com.

This is how social media affects me and what I’m doing about it. I make no claims about what it does to anyone else. This is not advice.

Ross bridge in snow and ice on Macquarie River

I think it’s obvious that I’m not neurotypical and I have my mental health challenges. In case you’re worried, I do have help from qualified medical professionals and I’m Ok. Around this time of year, things get a little harder for me. Tasmanian winter is harsh. Not so much with the weather but the lack of light and other factors leads some of us to the winter blues as they are called. I often joke that real Tasmanians do the only sensible thing and leave.

We had our mid-winter sun break in Vanuatu this year and I feel extremely privileged to have done that. The locals there really seem to like Aussies and know how to show us a good time. We snorkelled, zip lined and kayaked as well as eating and walking. It’s our third time, we love the place. But the major benefit of holidaying in the south pacific is the lack of communications. Sure, there’s wifi in the resort, but it’s crap, spotty and generally says – “hey, should you really be doing this on holidays?”.

Fire twirling Iririki Resort Vanuatu

There was fire twirling to celebrate and we did the mid-winter solstice nude swim. And no, you can’t see the photos. But we did jump in the hot tub, watch the full moon and mark the shortest day in 28c weather. We also took a moment to remember my late Mum, who had her birthday on the solstice. But a week was not enough, and I mean the wifi as well as the holiday.

Upon return, I revisited my happiness project and had another revelation; did you know that our US friends call television “seasons” because they make TV in a seasonal cycle? It’s probably obvious to the rest of you, but for me it just clicked. And it occurred to me that Winter is for hibernating and writing, Spring and Summer are for getting out and filming and Autumn is harvest season when you release your finished product. Woah! Mind blown.

The next revelation was that if I want to make a bunch of videos, I have to write a bunch of videos. No writing, nothing to film. So, I’m hibernating and writing, because that’s what Winter is for.

But what’s this got to do with social media? Well, I posted a comment on a YouTube video for the latest and greatest camera accessory by the biggest Chinese maker of such things. I felt the ad was all sizzle and no steak. This particular company has a complex line of products that are often reliant on or conversely, incompatible with, their other products. Figuring out what other things you actually have to have to make the thing even work, well it’s complex. I said, quite respectfully I thought, that I didn’t think the ad gave enough information and focussed on the technology behind the product, rather than the features of the product. Well, that started it. I got called stupid, told the product was so obvious it could be a lawn mower, and more. I wish I had a thick skin, but I don’t. And I’ve had a few idiot comments on my own videos too.

Now we get to the killer bit. The freaking algorithm. YouTube serves up videos that it thinks will keep you watching as long as possible. More watch time, more ads, more money for YouTube. Simple. It’s a machine learning system that you could call AI. But for my money, the learning signals are all wrong. If I pause slightly as I scroll down the pages of thumbnails, YouTube assumes that I saw something I liked. No, I was just getting a better grip on the iPad, or Katrena said something and I was paying attention to her, or I needed a wee. Heck, there are a million reasons that I might pause my scrolling. Sometimes, I just need to read the fine print to see what the video is about because it’s not obvious from the stupid thumbnail.

All metrics are vanity and don’t relate to my enjoyment of the process of making my art. Man, I know that’s true, but do you think I can live it? Sure as shit, I look at any of the too numerous numbers that social media reports on my art, and bingo! I’m unhappy.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” Theodore Roosevelt.

Everything is click bait now. The only thumbnails that work on YouTube are those that make you pause. That doesn’t mean I’m interested in the video. It really doesn’t. And heaven forbid I should watch a few seconds of a video, because that obviously means I love that topic and need a hundred similar videos. No, it flaming doesn’t YouTube! It means I got conned and don’t want to be conned again. And if I watch one video on the moon landing, I’m not interested in every conspiracy theory video you have. And, by the way, I detest US politics.

Hopefully from my ranting you will get the idea? YouTube works on stupid “signalling” from the viewer and the logic is faulty.

Wood floats on water, ducks float on water, Therefore, ducks are made of wood! Monty Python

There are a lot of videos on YouTube, something like 14 Billion and counting. I don’t think anyone including Google really knows. The trick is finding the good ones. The search is becoming less useful as YouTube/Google mess with the results in the name of optimisation.

Next there’s the content – the actual quality of the videos themselves. Every filmmaker has a bias, just as every human has one. In history or documentary films that’s not so much of a problem. I can enjoy a good film even if the bias is obvious. I may disagree with the analysis, the conclusions or assumptions, but that’s how we advance knowledge, by disagreeing with each other in a respectful way and talking it through.

Most YouTubers are in it for the money. They either make their videos for an advertiser or they make their video advertiser friendly and let YouTube do the advertising. Reviews are not reviews, they are ads dressed as reviews. One popular camera reviewer just admitted this and copped a lot of flak.

I’m truly sick of YouTube suggesting videos about Notion, Canva, and various AI products. Marking “not interested” or even blocking those channels just makes the problem worse. More and more product-based crap videos. Or worse, “how I solved this problem” and the answer is Notion, even though there is no mention of Notion in the description, thumbnail or text!

Reading that last paragraph back, maybe that’s it, I’m just sick of YouTube. Maybe even sick of social media in general, AI recommendations and stuff like that.

I’m going to try Vimeo as a way of publishing my videos. I will publish the videos on this web site (ForgottenTasmania.com), that I control, and the viewer can just click on it, same as always. From your point of view, there’s no change, you just have a Vimeo player instead of a YouTube player.

If you only ever watch my videos on YouTube and search or subscribe, I’ll still upload the videos to YouTube as well, you just won’t be able to comment on them as I’ve turned comments off. If you want to stay on YouTube with ads (or pay for YouTube Premium), then that’s your choice.

If you’d rather subscribe to my email list, you can have the ad-free version. I keep the email flow very light and don’t pass your details to anyone, ever. You can join or leave at any time and I won’t be offended, in fact I don’t think Mailchimp even tells me. And yes, the list is managed by Mailchimp, but they are Ok and the only personal info that I ask for is your email address, no names, phone numbers or credit cards. And the only reason I ask you to subscribe is so you get notified when I release a new video, although there are the occasional emails about stuff with Beattie’s Studio that I think you might like.

Talking of free, I do have a Patreon page where you can donate to Beattie’s Studio. There’s monthly plans or once off and you get early access to the videos. Or if you are in a position to donate and you hate Patreon, just email me and we will sort something out.

And who knows? Maybe shifting away from YouTube is a massive mistake and my videos will attract less viewers and the world will end? That last bit is unlikely. And I don’t care about likes and subscriber numbers on some random web site, well I do, but I’m trying not to. And I can live without the ~$130 per month (less $19.95 for my YouTube Premium) that YouTube gives me for participating in their shit show.

There were a lot of famous YouTubers making “I’m leaving YouTube” videos a while ago, maybe I’m just late to the trend?

I gave up FaceBook a few years ago and apart from upsetting an old friend, everything’s alright. I don’t post on Instagram and I’ve never really gotten into Twitter. Now that Elon owns it, I’ll stay away.

News is harder to give up, but I’m going to try. It’s so slanted and political, even the ABC. And commercial TV sucks badly. Maybe the Sunday paper (and a good one at that) is a better way to stay informed? Unfortunately, good news does not sell newspapers.

And with every item given up, I will look to add a few positive things like catching up with friends, walks with Merlin and brunch with family.

Social media is basically bad for me.

I should cultivate my own web site, announce my videos there, write my articles, share my findings and generally publish what I want. Find some way for that to automatically post a snippet on FaceBook, Instagram and YouTube and keep my videos on Vimeo. Maybe one day sell them to TV (most likely streaming) or put them behind a paywall. In the meantime, there’s Patreon if anyone wants to pay.

Oops, I think I just came up with a social media strategy...