Hi All,

Just wanted to say I have finally caught up with the email enquiries for Beatties portraits. I've helped quite a few people locate family photos taken at Beatties Studio in Cat & Fiddle.

This is a sideline for me, since my goal with this web site is to publish the historic photograph collection. I don't charge for this search service and the web site does not receive any revenue from the sale of re-prints of portraits. That said, I'm happy to help, it just takes a while.

When you are enquiring (about portraits) please think carefully about which photographic studio took your photos. Beatties was not the only one in Hobart, and we don't have the negatives from any other studio, just Beatties Hobart. Our few "failures" to date have turned out to be photos from other studios, which is why we couldn't find them.

Beatties photos were signed (mostly). The proof sets were numbered and stamped "proof only" or embossed. Proofs, for those who don't know, were the small sample prints made just so you could see who was in which photo. They were produced quickly and automatically and the colour and tone were not balanced by hand. They were also not retouched. So the studio was always concerned that a customer might think the finished photo would suffer these flaws and hence the "proof" stamp was applied. "This is just an idea of what will be in your finished photo, not what it will look like" was a catch phrase I know my mother used regularly.

Anyway, enough inside baseball. If you definitely had Beatties Studio in Cat & Fiddle take your picture and you want a re-print, please do get in touch.

Cheers

John Stephenson