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Note: All items pictured on this website are in the personal collection of Frank W. Reiser. Please contact me if you wish to discuss displaying the collection at your institution or need additional information about the topic.

Charles F. Conly (1846–1892)

As a young man, Conly left his hometown of Milford, Massachusetts, for Boston, envisioning a career on the city’s stage. It did not work out. After continuous rejections from interviews and auditions, dejected and needing cash, he spotted a “Boy Wanted” sign at Warren’s Photographic Studio on Washington Street. Though older than a boy, he applied and was hired at the low salary intended for a youth. He quickly learned the craft of photography and excelled at it. Conly returned to Boston’s theater district as a photographer; with a camera he opened doors his acting career never could. He found success among the rich and famous and soon extended his work to the glamorous world of New York’s Broadway.

While Conly advertised photographically based crayon portraits, (photographic enlargements artistically finished with crayon to resembled drawn portraits) his main focus was capturing posed performers in front of hand-painted backgrounds—what he termed illusionist settings. He transformed the studio with hanging backdrop paintings, a prop wardrobe, a solarium of tropical plants, and even paper-maché rock formations. Subjects always appeared in distinct gestures, as if in performance. By the 1890s he also excelled at children’s portraits alongside his theatrical work.

This 1886 cabinet photograph of an unknown young lady was taken on a 6 × 9-inch Stanley sensitized glass dry plate. The contact print was made by J. B. Hunter, an employee of Conly. The title tells us it was taken as a promotional example of the studio’s quality work. Uncommissioned portraits are important to historians of photography because the photographer is able to express a personal vision of the art.

Conly’s reputation was built through pioneering theatrical photography. In 1885 he used electric lights to photograph the audience at Boston’s Bijou Theater. Despite the difficulty of keeping people still, the experiment succeeded; he presented the attendees with souvenir prints that also served as clever advertising. In December 1890 he photographed Boston’s production of Soudan on its 100th performance. His lens also recorded notable figures including Frederick Douglass and Helen Hunt Jackson.

In 1894, at the age of 46, Conly died from complications of consumption (tuberculosis). His wife, Jane A. Harris, inherited the studio and assumed a managerial role.

Typical Conly “illusionist” classical theatrical pose.

Hand-colored albumen-print cabinet card of an unknown actress posed with props from Conly’s studio.

To date, Diamond Dyes is the only advertisement found to run on the verse of a Conly CDV card other than for the services of the studio. 

The Ghost Image of Otis Skinner

Otis Skinner (1858–1942) was a prominent American stage actor. In the transferred image he appears costumed as Hajj, the cunning beggar-poet in Edward Knoblock’s 1911 play Kismet (an “Arabian Nights”–style drama set in Baghdad). Skinner originated the role on Broadway, played it for roughly twenty years on stage and tour, and reprised it in the 1920 silent and 1930 sound film versions.

The cabinet card titled “A Quartette of Tippers” was apparently stored for a long time in contact with a portrait of Skinner. Silver salts from the Skinner photograph migrated to the reverse of the Tippers card, creating the faint ghost-like mirror image. Interestingly, Skinner’s signature appears as a negative: the ink itself did not transfer; instead it sealed the silver beneath it, leaving a gap in the ghost image. This indicates the signature was added by hand after the photograph was printed rather than written on the original negative.

The Ghost Is Being Ghosted

A secondary, very faint ghost image of a blonde woman is visible overlying Skinner’s ghost portrait. Unfortunately she is too faint to identify.

These transferred images remind us of the sensitivity of nineteenth-century photographs. Three pictures share their stories through pictorial clues, yet they also underscore the importance of proper storage. Density lost from one card became the ghost on another—evidence of the damage caused by careless contact.

1. Oxidation
   Trace oxidants from the paper or cardboard, or sulfur-containing pollutants, slowly convert some of the metallic silver into mobile silver ions:
2. Migration/diffusion
   The silver ions can move through the albumen or gelatin layer coating the paper. Even in low humidity, a microscopic film of adsorbed moisture is normally present on surfaces. Together with any volatile compounds released by the cardboard, allows the ions to cross the interface to  the other card
3. Re-deposition
   On the receiving cardboard, the ions are reduced back to metallic silver or react with sulfur compounds to form silver sulfide (Ag₂S). The result is a faint mirror image (ghost image) that matches the original photograph’s density.

 

How to cite this page:
Reiser, Frank W. (2024). “Charles F. Conly – Photographer of Theater and the Famous.” Available at https://antiqueslides.net/charles-f-conly-photographer/

Reference: Boston Gl

Boston Globe, 15 December 1894 – Obituary of Charles F. Conly