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School photos

When I was at school in the 50s/60s the panoramic school photo was a bi-annual occurrence. This involved up to 700 people being organised into tiers, and a man from Panora Ltd of Clerkenwell taking the photo. The clockwork camera panned across the assembled bodies – the joke being that if you were at the start end, once the camera had moved on, you should be able to run round the back and stand at the other end – thus appearing twice. I am curious to know exactly how the camera worked, and how the results were developed and printed. Possibly AP’s John Wade could shed some light?