Vintage landscape: portraits

McCall flower portrait 13, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta“Early Double Tulip: Van de Hoeff,” Alberta, Canada, ca. 1930, hand-colored glass lantern slide by William Copeland McCalla, via Provincial Archives of Alberta Commons on flickr (all images here).

McCall flower portrait 17, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of AlbertaFritillaria Pudica Spreng – Yellow or Mission Bell.”

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.

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

McCall flower portrait 2, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta“Cross-section of poppy capsule.”

McCall flower portrait 9, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta“How Violets scatter their seeds: capsule open: [capsule] empty.”

McCall flower portrait 16, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta“Trillium sessile: Californicum wats.”

McCall flower portrait 12, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta“Gladiolus Star of Bethlehem.”

McCall flower portrait 14, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta“Mountain Ash.”

McCall flower portrait 15, ca. 1930, Provincial Archives of Alberta“Phlox Drummondii.”

You can see more of McCalla’s beautiful flower portraits here.