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Funnell, Martin Collection

The architect and animated film maker John Martin Funnell (1930-2019) took these panoramic photographs whilst serving in the British army as a National Serviceman in Hong Kong from 1953 to 1955. Corporal Funnell, as he then was, made a panoramic camera out of stiff cardboard, glued with Seccotine (refined fish glue), balsa cement, brown sticky paper, a motor from an alarm clock, and a recycled medium format camera lens. The camera was mounted on a tripod and took seven seconds to traverse a 90-degree angle. The camera used 120 film, taking four shots in a standard roll of 12 exposures. Funnell usually used Ilford FP4 (black and white) film, but occasionally used Agfacolor (colour transparency/slide) film. The images online here are scans made by Martin Funnell, HPC ref: MF-d. The collection of Funnell's panoramic negatives has since been donated to Special Collections, University of Bristol Library, ref DM3108.