Beken of Cowes
The Beken of Cowes is a family of photographers from the British city of Cowes , whose members have been photographing yachts since 1888 and shaped a new style of yacht photography. In the early 1970s, the family members founded Beken of Cowes Ltd.
history
In 1888 the pharmacist Alfred Edward Beken moved from Canterbury in Kent / England to the Isle of Wight in the English Channel . He bought a pharmacy in the port city of Cowes on the north coast. The international sailing regatta Cowes Week on the Solent , which was co-initiated by the Royal Yacht Squadron, took place from there as early as 1826 .
Alfred Edward Beken and especially his son Frank Beken (* ?; † 1970) began to photograph the boats that passed close to their house. The cameras available at that time were neither suitable for the conditions at sea nor particularly easy to use mobile. That is why Frank Beken developed and built his own camera that managed without the water-sensitive bellows . The new camera consisted of two wooden boxes: one with the optics, locking system and the light-sensitive photo plate , the other served as a viewfinder . The camera was triggered by the photographer biting a rubber ball that he held between his teeth. This camera could only take one picture at a time before the plate had to be changed on land. Therefore, the photographer had to know the conditions of the regattas and estimate the courses based on wind and currents. Frank Beken rowed a boat on the Solent for every photo and took a picture, which he later made in his bedroom. In the Beken Pharmacy , these pictures were then sold alongside the medicines and perfumes . Due to the proximity of Queen Victoria's summer residence, Osborne House , several crowned heads came and bought photographs of their yachts from Beken.
From the 1930s onwards, Frank Beken was accompanied by his son Keith (* 1915; † 2007). Keith was a trained chemist , but instead of pursuing his learned profession, he also concentrated on photography. He photographed the legendary J-class sailing yachts and began color photography in the 1950s . When the Royal Ocean Racing Club began to organize the Admiral's Cup every two years with the Fastnet Race from Cowes in 1957 , there were numerous motifs that promoted the business of the Bekens. Frank Beken later traveled with his equipment to regattas in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean .
After Frank Beken's death, the Beken & Son pharmacy was sold and photography finally came to the fore. Keith Beken was supported by his son Kenneth and started a new company called Beken of Cowes Ltd. founded. Now photos were taken exclusively from the water, which finally made the name Beken famous in the sailing scene. Many sailors are familiar with photos of Beken of Cowes , especially the black and white images of classic sailing yachts up until the late 1930s. Keith Beken retired from photography in the mid-1990s after taking the eye-catching photos of the Silk II accident at Cowes Week 1996.
Peter Mumford joined Beken of Cowes in 1992 and became the second photographer in 2001. He initiated the transition to digital photography in the company. Kenneth Beken and Peter Mumford are operating from two 40 knot Boston Whaler boats today . Every year they add around 50,000 recordings to their archive.
literature
- Peter Sandmeyer, Keith Frank, Kenneth Beken: Beken Of Cowes . In: mare . The magazine of the seas. No. 75 . Hamburg August 2009, p. 48-65 .
- A hundred years of sailing . Beken of Cowes. Delius Klasing Verlag, Hamburg, ISBN 978-3-89225-152-1 (with a foreword by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh ; 2nd edition 1988 and 3rd edition 1988 under the same ISBN).
- Robert McKenna: The Dictionary of Nautical Literacy . McGraw-Hill, 2003, ISBN 978-0-07-141950-5 .
Web links
- Beken of Cowes Ltd. website (English)
- Beken exhibition (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Website on the company history of Beken of Cowes Ltd. (English) accessed on September 24, 2009
- ↑ published as cover picture and often in the English magazine Yachting World , London, October 1996