UMBRELLAS AT THE 1906 DERBY
(an early example of “fake news”)

Hanging just inside the entrance of the Administration Building of Epsom Downs Racecourse is the following splendid photograph of a sea of umbrellas at the rainy 1906 Derby.

Derby Umbrellas, 1906.
Image with thanks to Epsom Downs Racecourse.

The photographer was Horace Nicholls (1867-1941), a freelance press photographer who specialised in images of Edwardian high society – and among the first to make a living from photojournalism..

Horace Nicholls setting off on a photographic trip, c.1903.
Public domain image from his Wikipedia article.  

That first generation of professional photojournalists was known, in one writer’s words, for its “supple approach to photographic truth”. If Horace’s camera failed adequately to capture his experience of an event, he had no qualms about combining elements from different negatives to create a more compelling image. This was rarely acknowledged in his captions.

In the main image above, Horace’s starting point genuinely was a photograph of crowds of umbrella-toting spectators at the 1906 Derby. There were, however, some unoccupied areas in the middle-distance and (without the benefit of modern editing software) he enhanced the impression of the swarm of umbrellas by filling the gaps with suitably cloned images – hence the element of “fake news”.

Roger Morgan © 2021