Object of the month

Our latest archive find is an elegant embossing pliers that can press the letters "HL" into paper. This article explains what the initials mean and how the tool, coated with hammered-finish paint, ended up in our archive.

The "Photo Angle Finder" from the Japanese manufacturer Horseman is a precise measuring instrument from the analog era of professional and large-format photography. It was used to accurately determine tilt and inclination angles – an essential prerequisite for controlling perspective, horizon, and focus.

Our Object of the Month is an oversized Agfa film tin. It served as a promotional item for the company Professional Photo Services, or PPS for short, which was founded by F.C. Gundlach in 1971.

The PPS-News served as an advertising leaflet for the PPS company, which was founded in 1971 by F.C. Gundlach. Today, the brochure offers a fascinating insight into the photographic scene of the early 1980s.

Like a time capsule, the slide cabinet with integrated light table gives us an insight into the working methods of F.C. Gundlach from the 1970s.

The white Kodak box camera not only represents a formative phase in Dirk Reinartz's professional career, but also the beginning of his amateur photography.

Glass plate negatives from the F.C. Gundlach archive: The portraits of Heinrich and Katharina Gundlach are not only family records, but early examples of F.C. Gundlach's photographic vision.

Our object of the month takes us back to the year 1967, when F.C. Gundlach founded Creative Colour GmbH (CC for short).

We recently found a whole box full of slides in the archive, from which we extracted a 35mm color slide. We want to take this discovery as an opportunity to reflect on the question of why so few color prints have survived from the work of many photographers who worked on commission.

The history of photographic technology has produced many curiosities. Among them is the Kodak disc, which we recently came across while working in the archives.

This month we are presenting three 35mm film canisters from the Perutz company. These historical black and white films illustrate the challenges of archiving and preserving old film materials.

We have chosen a particularly fascinating object for June: a small leather case, possibly made of elephant hide, containing a large number of small-format negatives.