As a member in good standing with the American Topical Association (ATA), it is always with joy that I receive the association's bi-monthly magazine, Topical Time, which is jam-packed with great topical stamp collecting articles written by the members along side with regular features such as, (to name just these few):
- Award Winners
- Checklists Updated
- Cinderella Corner
- Index to Advertisers
- Jack's Journal
- Postal Stationery
- Show Calendar
- Topical Meter Stamps
- Topical Postline
- Topics on Postmarks
- Units in Action
- Youth in Topics
A paid Membership Directory is also available which contains a listing of all the topics collected by their members.
Do you know how many topical subjects are indexed in the general listing?
No less than six hundred and seventy (670) different subjects; from abacus to zoology!
Furthermore, inside the "Famous People" category, sixty-five (65) known personalities from Hans Christian Andersen via Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley up to George Washington, are listed as active topics.
Since I recently got myself into digital photography, I scanned the listing to see if my passion was listed. Yep! Photography on stamps, is listed under topical code 617 and, cameras on stamps, under topical code 618.
This means other stamp collectors as well are interested in this topic with so many areas of interest:
- photography pioneers (Lieven Gevaert, Niepce, Daguerre....)
- worldwide photographers
- old and modern type of cameras
- scientific photo techniques
- great and famous photographs
- wildlife photography of the year contest winners
On a historical note, Anna Atkins (1799-1871) is considered being the first woman photographer.
She immediately became aware of the possibilities that photography could offer to scientific research when she came in contact, in 1841, with Talbot, a friend of her father.
She worked with the procedure of cyanotype a technique which was just discovered by Herschel. Because of the stability of cyanotype many of her pictures still exist to this very day.
In October 1843 she published the first book containing photographs which was titled "British Algae -Cyanotype impressions". It took her 10 years to complete the book. It was published before Talbot's work in print "The pencil of nature".
If you like taking pictures, you might also want to start a topical stamp collection on the subject of photography to complement your interest and passion.
To give you an idea on what kind of stamps and related documents that you could include in such a collection, a sample of regular stamps issues, commercial envelopes, topical postmarks and first day covers are now being displayed online at the blog, in the topical checklists section, under "photography" for your viewing.
Because stamp collecting is easy and inexpensive to start, it has become the most fascinating hobby of the world. It's really fun and the challenge is rewarding.
John Lennon, President Roosevelt, Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth, chess champion Anatoly Karpov, and France's President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkosy are internationally known as great stamp collectors.
Locating, gathering, accumulating and caring for your commemorative postage stamps depicting people, events, objects, and other photography storytelling matters is a great way to learn and understand the world we live in, while appreciating the artistry and infinite variety of postal stamps.
Source : Ezinearticles
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