TOPIC:

Rob - The QSA medal ribbon makes the photo summer 1901 at the earliest. When they were issued in the field it appears to have been done in a responsible and controlled way for obvious reasons. By the summer of 1901 262 Henry Core had been in South Africa for about 18 months. So his uniform would be a replacement and quite likely not the best of fits. Also I am not totally convinced they have been tucked up. I admit the collar badges could be a bit of problem but the images of them are rather unclear. Thomas Lee of Barberton is a recognised professional photographer and I don't see why he would go to the bother and expense of photographing an unattractive woman in uniform - surely a more attractive woman would have been a better seller? I think it is a photograph of a genuine soldier in need of a haircut.

Regards, David.

David,

The words in pencil are "Copy by" (normal practice when a studio was asked to produced a duplicate of an existing image captured by another photographer).

And, to my eye, definitely a woman. Certainly not a serving soldier with those locks ....!

Neville

Neville, David from a closer look at the eyes my money is on a woman. Besides the hairdo (any man having his picture taken would have spent the half shilling for a decent cut) and on the risk of sounding a bit crude, the person in the photograph appears to be neither left nor right bearing (is non-bearing the right word?) which further seems to point to a woman. As for the breasts, these could be of the two-peas-on-a-plank variety, not uncommon before some Hollywood shyster looked at his daughter’s play-do kit and had a bright idea. Furthermore, this photograph was probably not made for commercial distribution so it is neither here nor there whether the “sitter” was catwalk material or not.
Everhard

The "copy by" (obvious when somebody else points it out) sinks without trace my Henry Core hypothesis. Regarding the sex of the sitter "the ayes have It" and I concede she is woman. Still a bit worried about where they got that QSA ribbon from. David.