Academy Award Winner: ‘Bermudian Journey’

Opening to coincide with Bermuda’s Heritage Month, the ‘Bermudian Journey’ exhibit at the ACE Gallery features the photographic work of Academy Award winning Cinematographer Karl Struss taken when he visited Bermuda in the late 1950s.

Mr Struss first visited Bermuda in 1912. Enchanted with the island, he returned in the fall of 1913 to take more photographs. This led to his appointment in 1914 by the Bermuda Trade Development Board to take photographs for the Island’s 1915-16 official tourists’ guide, Bermuda: Nature’s Fairyland.

While working on this assignment Mr Struss ran out of film. Learning that a motion picture company was working on the Island he acquired their short ends, the left over pieces of film, so he could continue shooting. In 1919 Mr Struss used the contacts he met in Bermuda to help him break into Hollywood, in particular, Charles Rosher the cameraman, a renowned London photographer who had already made the transition to motion pictures. Ten years later in 1929, Mr Struss and Mr Rosher shared the first Academy Award for Cinematography for the movie Sunrise (1927).

Mr Struss did not return to Bermuda for more than 40 years, until the late 1950s when he came with his wife Ethel. His photographs from that trip, exhibited in the ACE Gallery, show Bermuda on the cusp of social and economic change.
The original transparencies were taken with Ektachrome colour film on a stereo camera.

The modern prints are made from those original transparencies and represent hundreds of hours of digitalization and retouching. The colours though remain true to the original film and are rare examples of 1950s colour photographs. Ian Macdonald-Smith undertook the work of preserving and digitizing these images of Bermuda, and ACE thanks Mr. Macdonald-Smith for his loan of the prints for the ACE Gallery exhibition.

Samantha Froud, Chief Administration Officer, ACE Group said, “We are delighted to have the opportunity to share this unique collection of Bermuda photographs with the community. We hope that the exhibition will allow viewers to reflect and remember the Bermuda of 50 years ago when life moved at a slower pace.”

The ACE Gallery, ACE Building, 17 Woodbourne Avenue, Hamilton. The Gallery is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 11am – 2pm except by appointment. Groups should call in advance for an appointment 295 5200.

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Category: All, History