Summary

Black and white, silver gelatin photograph of early print cutting machines, Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd, New Zealand, 1960-1969.

This image shows Her Excellency, Lady Fergusson, wife of the Governor General of New Zealand (Sir Bernard Fergusson) touring the Kodak Processing Laboratory near Wellington, New Zealand. The visit was recorded by local Wellington news reporters and photographers, and the Wellington television station also filmed the event. This photograph and a short article was published in 'Sales News', Published by the Kodak Australasia Marketing Division, Coburg, July-August 1967, p.4.

The photograph shows the processing laboratory with print cutting machines. Far left is Tony Mosely and standing next to him in a laboratory coat is Ralph Salt. The tall woman with white hat is Lady Fergusson. Multiple films were printed on one roll of paper which were then cut automatically and matched into orders by staff. This shows a move into automated, high speed printing after the single, manual printing process that was used earlier.

Kodak manufactured and distributed a wide range of photographic products to Australasia, such as film, paper, chemicals, cameras and miscellaneous equipment. Its client base included amateur and professional photographers, as well as specialist medical and graphic art professionals who used photography, x-ray and other imaging techniques.

This photograph is part of the Kodak collection of products, promotional materials, photographs and working life artefacts collected from Kodak Australasia in 2005, when the Melbourne manufacturing plant at Coburg closed down.

Description of Content

Three men (visible) and two women, wearing laboratory coats, are standing and looking at a piece of machinery. The machine features rollers at one end and strips of paper with images are threaded through. At the other end there is a stack of vertically standing pieces of paper. The woman at the centre of the image is wearing a white hat, while the woman to the right has a beehive hairdo.

Physical Description

Black and white, silver gelatin photograph printed on light weight paper, landscape format with a white border.

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