PSS Exhibitions - Presentation Prints

Edinburgh Photographic Society

Presentation Prints

Background

PSS - 1861

The Photographic Society of Scotland started a tradition of providing an annual Presentation Print to each of their Members around 1860.

EPS - 1876

This tradition was revived by EPS in 1876, following a suggestion by ER Yerbury that every Member of EPS should be presented with a print”.

This distribution of prints to EPS Members became an annual event until 1904, with a final print being issued in 1908. The British Journal of Photography reported in 1880:

"The Photogrpahic Society of Scotland normally reached agreement, directly with the photographers in the 1860s, for the necessary number of prints to be supplied."

However, the EPS bills for Presentation Prints in 1878 and 1892 indicate that EPS made its own arrangements, locally, for copies of the Presentation Prints.

EPS - 1880

EDINBURGH PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

The Edinburgh Photographic Society may well serve as a model to kindred societies of higher pretensions.

It is scarcely credible - nevertheless is is a fact - that with a list of members, barely numbering 400, and with an annual subscription of only five shillings each, it has been able to pay all the working expenses, present each member with two 9 x 7 landscapes by Mr GW Wilson, of Aberdeen, and still have a balance in hand!

There must be perfection in management here before such gratifying statement could be made.

British Journal of Photography: 12 November 1880

The reference above to "members, barely numbering 400"is interesting. Almost exactly a year later, a rival photographic journal reported.

EDINBURGH PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

The Edinburgh Photographic Society is flourishing for it musters nearly 400 members! It must be some gratification to the Honorary Secretary, Mr M G Dobie, to know that, in return for the activity he displays he represents the executive of probably the largest photographic society in the world.

Photographic News: 11 November 1881

A list, giving the names and addresses of all EPS Members appeared in Transactions of Edinburgh Photographic Society, November 1881