Tobacco company Photographers

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Posted By: barrysloate

Lots to speculate about. First, I believe there were photographers all over the country that were hired to photograph the ballplayers. Joseph Hall was among the most famous but if you lived and played in Kansas City, Brooklyn wasn't all that convenient. We see numerous N173 designs on various studio photographs from different cities so it was a matter of getting the ballplayers to go to a convenient studio to be photographed. Remember, if you were in the business of selling tobacco, you probably didn't want to also be in the picture taking business. You paid somebody else to do it.
Regarding your second question, the daguerreotype would be an interesting example to study. The photographer started with a large plate that fit in his camera and if he used it to take only one photo, he created a full plate dag. If he covered half the plate, took a photo, then covered the other half and took a second photo, he created two half plate images. Likewise, he could could cover various parts of his plates and use it to take four quarter plates, six sixth plates, or even cover nine different sections and create nine ninth plates. Hope that isn't too confusing. In other words, he always started out with the same size plate; it just depended how many pictures he wanted to get on it.