Tele-Snaps

August 21, 2004 6:31 AM

Tele-Snaps:"Operating for 21 years, until 1968, this gifted amateur took considerably in excess of 250,000 still photographs of television programmes as they were being broadcast, perhaps even as many as half a million. He called them Tele-Snaps, the name a literal definition: by the direct method of fixing a 35mm camera to a tripod a short distance from his screen and shooting rolls of film, John Cura photographed entire programmes from the opening titles to the closing credits, creating usually up to 80 stills, sometimes more, as a unique record of a broadcast." One of the results of his hard work can be found here.
posted by feelinglistless (12 comments total)

Wow.
posted by rushmc at 7:16 AM on August 21, 2004

Simply incredible. What a great shame that so much of his work appears to be lost. The BBC link demonstrates exactly how well they could have been put to use by broadcast historians.
posted by briank at 7:54 AM on August 21, 2004

Fascinating stuff - thanks, feelinglistless. It seems that the Doctor Who clips are the only readily available telesnaps - too bad! Even an e-bay search came up with bupkis for "telesnaps."
posted by madamjujujive at 8:09 AM on August 21, 2004

Great link.

I wonder if anyone was doing this in other countries.
posted by mrbula at 8:28 AM on August 21, 2004

this is great--thanks! maybe more will show up? newspaper/magazine offices must have some in their archives.
posted by amberglow at 8:35 AM on August 21, 2004

And any excuse to sneak a Doctor Who link on the front page is fab by me.
posted by grabbingsand at 8:48 AM on August 21, 2004

> ...and an executive had replied, “We’re moving forward, Mrs Cura, not backwards.” Emily told us she was so upset that she destroyed the lot.’

It is funny how little things have changed.
>Cura was veritably pixillated by the 1955 arrival of commercial television. ‘…I have never seen such inane rubbish... Already, when I am forced to look at one, I could cheerfully kick the screen in.’

Great link.
posted by philfromhavelock at 9:27 AM on August 21, 2004

This is mindblowing. If only just a representative fraction of these were catalogued online ... what a resource! Wow.
posted by Shane at 11:09 AM on August 21, 2004

Great link and story. Hard to believe they were virtually all destroyed. Epitaph: "We’re moving forward, not backwards." Bastards.
posted by languagehat at 12:36 PM on August 21, 2004

It seems that the Doctor Who clips are the only readily available telesnaps

But funnily enough even here there are gaps, An episode of Marco Polo isn't around because Cura was off taking pictures of something else that week and no one was contracted to cover him. So there are some episodes which literally only exist as sound tracks now. I think the reason the majority of the snaps available are from Who is because of fan interest -- it's like having a million or so detectives looking in their attics or whereever.
posted by feelinglistless at 12:41 PM on August 21, 2004

What a senseless waste that it's all gone. But what an interesting story, feelinglistless.
posted by Vidiot at 2:39 PM on August 21, 2004

Great link. Thanks!
posted by dejah420 at 10:50 PM on August 21, 2004