In the middle of the 19th century, photography in Ireland was booming. By the early 1850s, Dublin boasted a dozen studios and 60 more opened in the following decade. Belfast, which had half-a-dozen at the end of the 1850s, doubled that number by 1864. In the years that followed, one of the up-and-coming photographers was Alexander Hogg, who was born on March 1st, 1870, in mid-Co Down, where his father was a land steward.
At the age of 18, Hogg began work in Belfast as an apprentice with his uncle James, who ran a drug and grocery business, in the days when the products were a common combination. One shop window displayed samples of tea and jam with another window selling Hogg’s Cherry Balsam and Zulu Insect Destroying Powder. The store also dispensed patent medicines such as Professor Brown’s herbal remedies and “The Acid Cure”, which claimed to be a “safe certain cure for rheumatism, neuralgia, stomach, liver, kidney, chest fever and nervous complaints”.
While working there, Hogg developed an interest in photography as a hobby, quickly becoming recognised as a leading amateur. He photographed river and harbour scenes, learning how to make lantern slides which led to him giving “lecturettes” to camera clubs. In 1895 the Ulster Amateur Photographic Society awarded him a prize medal for his lantern work.
Hogg had begun building up a collection of images that included people at work, especially in the linen industry. These pictures illustrated the Jacquard looms and the factory processes of preparing and spinning yarn, weaving, bleaching and finishing the cloth. His portfolio also embraced health and welfare, education, religion, shops, cafes and hotels. One of his best known images is of the Titanic on May 13th, 1911, the day of its launch at Harland and Wolff shipyard. But he also took pleasure in recording the minutiae of life such as customers in a milk bar or children enjoying a game of marbles in the school playground.
Barroom Bard – Frank McNally on the fictional Mr Dooley, whose thoughts were once required reading in the White House
The definite article – Brian Maye on Michael Joseph O’Rahilly, The O’Rahilly
Into the light — Paul Clements on photographer Alexander Hogg
Friends in high places – John Mulqueen on Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington’s American tour
Changing times reflected in his work stretched from the days of Victorian horse-drawn ambulances to the arrival of motor cars and aircraft. Tourist organisations, advertising firms, architects and solicitors sought Hogg’s services, and he was acquainted with the artists Paul Henry and William Conor.
At the age of 30, in 1900, he became a professional photographer and embarked on an extensive tour of the Boyne Valley taking flashlight shots of the interior of Newgrange, looking up at the capstone. These were rare images and the use of the flash technique achieved special artistic effects, but they have survived only as faded prints. While he was in Co Meath, Hogg photographed Bernard Gorman, said to be 100, sitting outside the half-door of his cottage at Proudfootstown.
His photographs of the built heritage include Sligo Abbey, the old castle at Crom, in Co Fermanagh, as well as high crosses, churches, convents and schools. In 1907 he spent his honeymoon in Donegal, writing to a cousin that he was busy taking views for postcards. One hotel that he often frequented was the Rosapenna at Downings which had opened for business in 1893. On a visit there in 1919, he photographed guests enjoying afternoon tea on the hotel’s fashionable veranda.
Hogg had a keen appreciation for the natural world with a love of the Irish landscape that included mountains, glens and valleys. Since his late teens he had photographed countryside scenes and captured rural life while attending outings with the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club and the local art society. Workaday farming scenes of cutting the corn, harvesting, or selling eggs on market days feature in many of his evocative compositions. He travelled widely throughout Ulster but also Sligo and Leitrim while some trips took him as far as Kerry where in 1914 he captured scenic beauty spots around Killarney.
The entertainment world of theatres, opera and picture houses is reflected with commissions to record snapshots of the performers. In December 1936 he photographed the Dublin actor and comedian Jimmy O’Dea on the stage at Belfast’s Empire Theatre when he was appearing in Ali Baba. Nine years earlier the first all-Ireland theatre relay – a musical comedy called Hip, hip, hooradio – was transmitted simultaneously from the Empire via Dublin to Cork with the Lord Mayors of each city greeting each other over the airwaves.
Alexander Hogg died on August 25th, 1939, just a week before the outbreak of the second World War. The Ulster History Circle, which retrieves the legacy of men and women of achievement who have been forgotten, has honoured Hogg with a blue plaque in the centre of Belfast. The photographic historian Patricia Pyne, who is a member of the Circle, described Hogg as an extraordinary documentary photographer. His archive, she said, is a testament to the capacity of documentation to surpass mere record, making it an inspiring experience. Not only was Hogg technically brilliant but also a true artist whose photographs capture a moment in time.
