alanburnett.com

One of the most difficult challenges with old photograph albums is identifying the albums creator, as – by definition in those pre-smart phone days – the photographer rarely features in the photographs themselves. In the 1925 Northern Capitals album, there is an intriguing series of photographs taken whilst the cruise ship was “crossing the North Sea” which seems to identify a series of potential photographers.

​Surely it must be possible to analyse who is missing from each photograph and thus equate it with the four named photographers and thus identify who took the one marked “mine”. Good luck.

So here we are, sailing across the Skagerrak in 1925 on the SS City Of Nagpur and here is our look-out. I can’t attest as to how good a watchman he was, but he made an excellent subject for a photograph. The look on his face is up there with the Mona Lisa in the enigma stakes.

We are a third of the way through the 1925 photo album of a voyage around the Northern Capitals and by now I feel as if I am getting to know some of the passengers quite well. I give them names – that’s Flora on the right and Matilda on the left. The ship’s officer (Reginald) appears to have had his head cut off and pasted onto a different body.

Page 12 and at last we have a clue. The photographs on page 11 and 12 are the same except for the exchange of the ship’s officer with the bow tie for the young girl in a chequered dress. The album is unlikely to belong to the ship’s officer, but could our mysterious photographer be the young girl in the chequered dress?

The officers of the SS City Of Nagpur seem to have little to do other than pose for photographs. It’s 1925 and the ship is crossing the Skagerrak, one of the busiest shipping channels in the world.

It is July 1925 and we are on board the SS City of Nagpur en route from Copenhagen to Oslo. It is a day at sea and our intrepid photographer is out on deck capturing the lives of his or her fellow passengers.