Miscellaneous travels on Corregidor

[fots2]

Thanks for that photo.

I must admit that #1 of that collage has me a little baffled. The left part of the photo looks ok with Bottomside, the steep slope of the south side of Malinta Hill and Caballo Island in the distance.

The hospital/camp area looks to be on a flat grassy spot and the photograph was taken from a high angle. There is no "high up area on a flat spot" view just west of Bottomside north. I think this is the view from the south side of Malinta Hill looking down onto Bottomside south.

Also, the coastline heading west from Bottomside north (between Bottomside and the hospital in the photo) is not a sandy beach with waves like that. In reality it is narrow, rocky and curves in the opposite direction. The land along here is not flat either. The waves and sand looks like Black Beach at Bottomside south.

Has this photographer stuck portions of two negatives together to make a new but inaccurate photo?

Does anyone know the actual location of the earliest American hospital on Corregidor? Was it at Bottomside south which is #3 in the collage?

[mapmaster]

Hi

Photograph number 1 of the collage is indeed interesting. The only possible position for the camera setup would be on the coastal cliff towards Battery Point. The position of the tent hospital could be Engineers Ravine.

The north shore where the wharves are would have been different at the start of the 20th Century. The key shoreline change would have been the Coal Basin between Engineers Wharf and the North Mine Wharf.

The Coal Basin would have been built off the shoreline and in Corregidor Bay as it would have been flooded to prevent fire. The land ends of the wharves were built off shore and filled to match the Coal Basin. The Coal Basin was later filled, when power generation turned to diesel oil, creating the shoreline we know today.

The bay in photograph number 1 looks a lot more curved than it does today. The above may be the reason.

Tiyoalan, these are a nice set of photographs - thanks for posting.

Regards

mapmaster

[fots2]

The cliff distance from Bottomside north to the hospital/camp seems longer than the length of the Coal Basin area we know today but perhaps it is just a perspective thing. That and the steep angle down is really throwing me off.

If the photographer was using a wide angle lens it would distort the view. The addition of that basin would also change the coastal view considerably. Maybe this explains the curved bay we see in the photo.

Mapmaster, not knowing exactly where this hospital was, I think your suggestion that this is Engineer Ravine is very possible. It may take me a couple Red Horse beers to get it into focus though.

Thanks for your help.

[mapmaster]

Hi Fots2

Here is another photograph of the same view and from the same era. It appears to have been taken from the same spot as the subject photograph number 1. It shows the same road along a cliff from San Jose heading west towards what would later be named Engineers Ravine.

The Coal Basin foreshore was about 60 metres into Corregidor Bay. Therefore, the coastline was radically changed after 1900.

Regards

mapmaster

[EXO]

We look at photos these days and assume that cameras of the last century were somehow primitive. They weren't. The truth was that their lenses and wet plate films were extraordinarily flexible, each being able to be adjusted on three axis basis. They could be adjusted to catch the most extraordinary angles, with deep perspectives and a few 'tricks' to boot.

[fots2]

Good point EXO.


Mapmaster, wow, it is amazing the difference between the original coastline and what it looks like after all the construction done there. The views still look strange but I agree with you 100%.

I learned something today. The original US hospital was in Engineer Ravine.

Timely post of yours too. I was getting ready to go out and buy those two jugs of Red Horse.

Salamat again.

[EXO]

gee, Fots, whatever you do, don't let us prevent your experimentation with red horse fueled photographic interpretation. I don't want to be partly responsible for someone not having a beer.

That other pic you posted is just a cropped version of the original photo, isn't it. The photographic 'trick' the photographer played on us with that was to give us a close-up point of view seemingly from hundreds of feet in the air from a viewpoint that wasn't there! I can't help but admire the photographers' craft of the era.

One of the more 'compact' camera kits, circa 1882. The J. H. Dallmeyer Ltd of London produced a wide-angle landscape camera in 1865.

[mapmaster]

Hi EXO and Fots2

EXO - the camera has undergone a lot of changes since the first quarter of the 19th Century, but the changes relate to portability, handling and processes. Photography became a business early and a hobby as soon as photography became affordable for the everybody.

It's great an unknown photographer placed their camera in such a position as to capture a photograph that would become meaningful to us 110 years later. It is good early photographs of Corregidor survive.

Fots2 - no problems, but I must confess I have a secret; I've redrawn the coastline of Corregidor, traced from a number of maps, so many times and have noted the changes from one map to the next.

Regards

mapmaster

[Deleted]

It's a shame that most of the the glass plate photographs were recycled into greenhouses when the photographers found themselves strapped for cash. those glass plate images could be incredibly sharp and considering they were usually 5x7 inches, a lot of detail was lost just to keep tomatoes warm.

[Deleted]

I have another one!

Found this one in “History and Description of the Picturesque Philippines”, by Adjuntant B Hannaford published in 1900.