Marcel Safier
Published by Ron Cosens 
Print this Page
e-Mail this Page
Marcel Safier was born in Southport, Queensland on Australia’s Gold Coast and he developed an early interest in photography through using his mother’s Kodak Bob Brownie, although he quickly progressed to a Minolta SR2. At 15 his interest in old photographs was stimulated by delving through his mother’s old photographs then receiving a gift of early family photographs from a relative. It was a Scottish cabinet photo amongst those that most drew his attention. A year later he acquired some old photos from an antique shop and he has collected them ever since. Parallel to this he has avidly researched his Scottish and English ancestry.
In 1984 he graduated in Medicine from the University of Queensland and later started working as a General Practitioner on Brisbane’s south side. In 1992 he purchased a Brisbane family photograph album and he became more curious about local photographers. It turned out the grand children of two of the photographers whose work was in the album were patients of his. Since then he has keenly researched the lives of Brisbane photographers, using familiar genealogical techniques and creating family trees for many of them. This research eventually extended to photographers from other parts of Queensland, then Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, South Africa and America and contact with hundreds of descendants and relations of photographers.
Friendships with fellow collectors and researchers Sandy Barrie, Warwick Reeder and Robert (Bob) Noye (now deceased) greatly increased his enthusiasm and knowledge. Marcel’s collection has grown to over 25,000 photographs and is particularly strong in Australian carte de visite images, his first love amongst his extensive collection that also includes many glass plate cameras. Through their mutual interests Marcel began corresponding with Ron Cosens, Britain’s major carte de visite collector in Yorkshire which eventually led to a meeting in 2005, and a continuous exchange of ideas and data since. Along with Sandy Barrie, Marcel has an ongoing involvment in the datasbase of British and Irish photographers maintained by Ron Cosens. He has also established contact with many photographic historians and collectors around the world through the internet and attendance at photographic history conferences in Australia, New Zealand, Wales and the USA. A particular ambition is to establish a network of the leading carte de visite collectors in as many countries as possible.
Marcel has spoken to historical societies, collector’s groups and photographic conventions on aspects of photographic history, he has created photographic history websites, authored monographs on photographers, contributed to the Routledge “Encyclopedia of 19th Century Photography”. He is currently researching for a book on the history of the carte de visite photograph in Australia, preparing a biographical index of Australia’s daguerreotypists, assisting with a book on Frederick Scott Archer and also catalogues for forthcoming exhibitions. He is a President of Cameraholics (Photographic Collectors Club of Queensland) and a member of the Queensland Card Collector’s Society Inc, the Australian Photographic Collector’s Society, the Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain, The Daguerreian Society and The Photographic Historical Society of Canada. He enjoys photography especially at music concerts and is a keen convert to the digital medium despite owning more than 50 usable film cameras!
To contact Marcel, visit http://members.ozemail.com.au/~msafier
