Peter Stubbs who has died aged 78 years joined the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) in 1993. He was awarded the first ever Fellowship for a website in 2005 in the Research category. The site was a monumental achievement exploring the history of the Edinburgh Photographic Society (EPS) and its members from its foundation in 1861 to 1999. The website showed that good research did not always need to be presented in book form. Peter continued to expand the scope of the website until recently. As a member of the EPS for over thirty years he became the memory of the Society through his diligent research into its formation and its progress from its inception.
Peter also produced a fascinating record of the nineteenth century photographic businesses in the city, particularly in Princes Street, of which there were a large number. He formed the view that Robert Louis Stevenson was aware of the Edinburgh studio scene when he wrote his novel Jekyll and Hyde
Edinburgh was very much the focus of Peter’s photographic interests and over the years he created an archive of industry in the city. His major contribution to photography in the city is contained in the website edinphoto.org.uk. It is a huge combination of photographs of people, places and activities in the city both historic and recent. This shows how the city has developed over an extended period, including what has physically changed and what has remained the same. The website remains live and a valuable resource although some links are now broken.
Peter was an actuary by profession, which probably explains his capacity to organise such an extensive project. He has left an important legacy for the city, for Edinburgh Photographic Society and for photographic historians more generally.
His enthusiasm for photographic history did not extend to using old fashioned plate cameras. Once on a cold spring day on Rannoch Moor, as a fellow member was demonstrating the use of his newly acquired half-plate camera and taking forever to do so, he observed that he never wanted to use a camera like that. Indeed, as a member of the hillwalking group ‘All Year Ramblers’, he recorded their walks with his iPad.
Douglas J May FRPS,
and additions from Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS
See: http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/ for earlier versions (which retain some of the now broken links see: https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/)
Image: peter_edinphoto / Instagram
Comments
Excellent, thank you Graham Hogg.
I can confirm that copies of the Edinphoto website have been preserved as part of the UK web archive, managed by the British Library and other UK legal deposit libraries.
Graham Hogg
National library of Scotland
That is sad news. Peter had unbridled enthusiasm for Edinburgh's photographic history. Ron Cosens (who maintains a database of all photographers of Great Britian and Ireland to 1940, that I do research support for) and I met with Peter in 2015 to "compare notes" about our shared interest in Edinburgh's past photographers.
Rest in Peace.
A very useful website. I hope it doesnt disappear.