October 2, 2009

Panoramic Photographs | Ancestry Magazine

Panoramic Photographs

On 31 August 1911, several hundred descendants of John and Agnes Barr gathered in Waynesville, Illinois, for a family reunion. The attendees visited with seldom-seen relatives, surely exclaimed over the many sets of twins present, listened to music provided by the Waynesville band, heard numerous speeches, and dined on food prepared by the ladies of the Waynesville Methodist church. Even on this summer day, most of the men wore suits and ties; bow ties were in the minority. The older women favored staid black dresses, while the younger ones wore high-necked, long-sleeved white blouses with contrasting skirts, although a few chose dresses in plaid or print. Many women wore straw hats topped with flowers, but one frivolous creation seems to have been designed of fur or feathers, and another resembles a beehive. Many of the little girls were dressed in white.

How do I know so much about the clothing this family wore to a reunion some ninety years ago? Because many attendees ordered a souvenir copy of a remarkable photograph taken of the event, and one such photograph has found its way into my family history collection. The photo, which is eight inches tall and forty-one inches wide, shows 367 people. In the center is a woman in a white blouse with a brooch, holding a little girl with big, white bows in her hair. They are my great-grandmother and my great-aunt, who journeyed from Otoe County, Nebraska, to attend the reunion.

Panoramic Cameras

The photograph is of a type that can be of special interest to family historians. It is a panoramic photograph, also occasionally referred to as a panograph. Some prof essional photographers take panoramic photographs today, but the height of their popularity was in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Panoramic photographs as long as twenty feet have been produced, and some show as much as a 360-degree view. Typically, though, these photos are twenty-eight inches to six feet wide and about ten inches tall.

Early photographers saw commercial potential in creating panoramic photographs—particularly views of cities, which had long been popular subjects of panoramic etchings. Some of the earliest panographs were made simply by mounting single daguerreotypes or photographs in a series. In the late 1800s, though, special cameras and film were designed to facilitate such unique picture-taking. Some of these cameras were even marketed to amateur photographers.

Two of the most popular camera models for panoramic photography were the Kodak Panoram and the Conley Panoramic. They used roll film and a swing lens to photograph scenes almost 180-degrees wide, but produced prints less than twelve inches long.

Because this type of photography was best done using special equipment, it became a type of specialty. Professional photographers such as Wasson Studio of Decatur, Illinois, who took the photograph of the Barr family reunion described above, preferred the Cirkut camera. Patented in 1904, the Cirkut was mounted on a tripod and used large-format film. As the entire camera and film rotated on the tripod, it could take 360-degree images that could be twenty feet long.

Today, Cirkut cameras are sought by museum curators, camera collectors, and photographers, both professional and amateur, who are inter ested in using them to take photographs. An Internet search reveals much about the various models, workings, replacement parts, and type of film for such cameras. And a history of panoramic photography that focuses on camera development (pardon the pun), including a detailed timeline, is available online at:

Panoramic Photographs | Ancestry Magazine.