Legendary Sailboats: Beken of Cowes

摘要

The Beken collection of photographs is one of the foundations of the art and business of marine photography. It started in 1888 after Alfred Beken set up a pharmacy in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. While preparing prescriptions for Queen Victoria and other royalty, his son Frank observed-and then began photographing-the beauty of the passing fleet of racing sailboats on the Solent. Using a small launch to follow the yachts, Frank famously used a mouth-activated bulb as a shutter release on his handmade mahogany camera, as shown in a photograph in the foreword of Legendary Sailboats, a new compilation of Beken photographs spanning the period from 1884 to 1938. This oversized book offers a selection of detailed portraits of yachts, many of them taken over a century ago in British waters. According to the book's credits, the images were assembled with the help of Frank's son, Keith-who died in 2007 at the age of 92-and grandson Ken; they draw on the rich Beken collection of over 200,000 photographs.