Three people by Wardley in Lytham
By: usermattw
Tags: antiques, CDV, Lytham, photography, vintage photography
Click here to view it larger.
I think it’s fun to compare and contrast different works by the same photographer, and I was happy to realize that these three cartes de visite images are by the same person, a J. Wardley of Lytham, England. {Click to enlarge the below image)
I don’t think I would have made the connection if they hadn’t all been labeled with the photographer’s information. Sure, the ones with the man and the woman show the same floor, back wall, and drape, but it’s not obvious. And the man and the girl may be sitting on the same chair, though the fabric up the side appears different in each, so maybe not. (It was a common enough style of chair in photos of the day.) The fact that the two above have been trimmed in similar ways suggests there might be some connection, but I don’t really know. In any case, I especially like the two images above. It’s more to my personal taste to see pictures like that with a full-body shot, though the picture of the girl is lovely and sweet. The framing of the man is particularly interesting to me, the way the camera gets right in and slightly above him, almost more like the angle of a modern paparazzi photo rather than a vintage portrait. By the way, the photographer’s full name was apparently Joshua Wardley, and according to a page here, he declared bankruptcy in 1869, and in 1880 sailed with his family to New Zealand, where he set himself up as a successful landscape photographer. The image below is the photographer’s information which appears on the backs of all three of these photos. (Click to enlarge.)
Pics of Then 
Wardley was clearly a good photographer, so you have to wonder why his studio failed in England. On the other hand, the decision to emigrate to New Zealand seems to have worked out well.
I don’t know. I’m sure an investigation into personal and business finances in Victorian England (either his, or generally) would be its own interesting blog post. But it’s good his story seems to have ended on a more positive note.