Hello everyone, I search the owners of the photos attached please, do not hesitate to contact me Best regards Mathieu
Mathieu, Thanks for posting. They look like photographs taken in France in 1940. I’ll alert the forum 1940 expert to your post and he will hopefully be able to assist. Steve
Combination of Highlanders, Frenchmen, pebble beach etc.....implies St Valery en Caux in 1940. Having said that, the level of destruction appears excessive
The 6th photo with the burial party has a building in the background with a sign that says LYCEE HAVRE........
Numbers 1, 5 and 6 appear to be of the same burial party - taken at different stages in the process. Numbers 3 and 4 appear to taken on the same stretch of road. Steve
I would say that the photographs are from the Seine Maritime Department of the Haute Normandie region....some of the buildings have architecture fabric which is associated with Normandy. Lycee Havre, ....would expect the name of the school to be more defined but it could be that the site of the photographs is the Le Havre area.....cannot make out the full signage on the board. I believe the BEF had a base there as did the British Army in the Great War,Le Havre being a port where manpower and supplies were brought into this part of France in both wars.
Most photos are of the Casino area of St Valéry en Caux. See this photo. http://www.cparama.com/forum/cartes2016/1481206640-76-Saint-Valery-en-Caux-entre-e-du-casino.jpg Note building on top of cliffs, fence posts and pergola. I think Mathieu knows this. It isn’t what he’s asking; he’s looking for the owners of the pictures. Richard
Having visited Saint Valery en Caux a number of years ago,I can recognise the casino site which is still in the same place but as I remember access is no longer via a bridge. The East side of the port quay has a distinctive market square layout,actually in the form of a rectangle with good parking, as I remember
That makes me feel quite chuffed - St Valery en Caux and my post #3 - having never been anywhere near the place. So morrisc8 owns two of the photos....but who owns the rest?
All photos were made in St Valery en Caux in 1940. Both MorrisC8 photos were taken at Bourg Dun 10 km from St Valery. For Lycée Havre, this is the casino that was used in 1940 as a high school
Good,I was going to say that I could not recognise the lie of the land as it were, as being related to St Valery en Caux. Must have passed through Le Bourg Dun travelling down the coast from Dieppe in the direction of Le Havre on the D 925. St Valery en Caux is bypassed now and must have been a hard place to exit from by road in the hectic days of June 1940.The remnants of the 51st Highland Division must have been well bottled up there. Interesting,there was also a casino at Le Bourg Dun.
It's a good question about ownership of copyright , many of these BEF photos are copied ( sometimes from originals ! ) and sold over and over again on ebay . My own view is if you are very precious about an image don't put it on the worldwide web ! Craig
That was my understanding of Mathieu’s message also. I assume he is maybe interested in using them for a project and would like to ask permission from the owners if he can.
Any idea how to spot reprints? I’ve managed to build up a little collection which I hope are all originals.
The non-forensic approach is simply to search high and low and compare with other collectors. If the same image crops up at a superior resolution, you likely have a copy. That said, many prints could be produced from the same negative--each as 'original' as the first.
Very good question. My own feeling is that only the original 'negative' is truly original because, after all, there can only ever be one of those. We then get into the topic of 'prints' and, more specifically, when the prints were taken off the negatives. It is a sad fact that most negatives, especially those in family collections, were destroyed: that then makes the 'first' print(s?) the originals? The rest is about that time/when factor! I would argue that it is all then a question of personal subjectivity. My own attitude, like I suspect most others, is that if the print was produced soon after the photo was taken - I guess you could call that a 'first generation' or 'contemporary' print aka 'photo at the time' and belonging to the person to whom it was originally intended - then that counts as an original. Anything else I would personally describe as a copy or reprint. I understand that the IWM photos that can be bought directly from them are/were produced from the original negatives which makes them technically 'original prints'....but what about the paper used?.... I guess the bottom line is that if it's 'old' and from, ultimately, the original owner then it's an original. Everything else is a copy. Of course there are all sorts of scenarios but, with modern print techniques, including scanning directly from negatives, a modern 'copy' could well be of better quality than the 'original print'. All depends what you want?
Guidance ? https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/481194/c-notice-201401.pdf Kyle
