The winter garden: amaryllis

Amaryllis4, McCall flower portraits, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of AlbertaAmaryllis, Alberta, Canada, ca. 1930, hand-colored glass lantern slide by William Copeland McCalla, via Provincial Archives of Alberta Commons on flickr (all images here).

Amaryllis2, McCall flower portraits, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta

The photographer, William McCalla, was interested in botany and photography from an early age. He studied at Cornell University in the early 1890s and later worked in western Canada as a farmer, librarian, and Natural History teacher.  While teaching from 1925 to 1938, he made over 1,000 lantern slides of plants and animals as visual aids.

Amaryllis1, McCall flower portraits, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta

The slides were donated to the Archives by his son and granddaughter in 1982 and 2007.

Amaryllis3, McCall flower portraits, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta

Maple leaves

Momijigari, Library of CongressMomijigari,” (maple leaf gathering), ca. 1880s, by Taiso Yoshitoshi, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Vintage landscape: persimmon

Kaki ni kirigirisu, Library of Congress“Kaki ni kirigirisu” (Grasshopper eating persimmon), late 19th c. reproduction of original early 19th c. meiji print, by Katsushika Hokusai, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Vintage landscape: focal point

Egypt, Matson, Library of Congress

Obelisk, probably Cairo area, Egypt, September 1934, by American Colony of Jerusalem Photo Department, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Vintage landscape: autumn

Autumn, autochrome, 1915, Museum of New Zealand“Autumn,” 1915, an autochrome by Robert Walrond, via Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa).