Mark Emmerson's new book a compilation of old Bermuda photographs costs $1,000, but he thinks it's a steal.

"This is an expensive book, no doubt about it," said Mr. Emmerson. "It is still a bargain though; when you buy gold, you do not expect to pay the price of rust.

"There has never been a Bermuda book like it for the selection of historic photographs, their restoration, the number and size and quality of the images."

'Historic Photographs of Bermuda' is a large book of 440 pages, with more than 420 of those devoted to one print per page. The earliest photo in the book is from 1858.

"I calculated that it cost me per image, $250," said Mr. Emmerson. "So if a person buys the book, they pay roughly $1.45 per image. So I think they are getting a fair deal."

Mr. Emmerson has been collecting vintage photographs for three decades.

"Some have been given, but most have been bought," he said. "One of my sources is Nick Lusher and the other is Anthony Petitt. They sell old Bermuda things. They know I have been looking for interesting, old photographs and negatives. They usually give me a buzz if they find something."

He said his criteria for picking old photographs has changed over the years. "I love history," he said. "At first, I wasn't interested in people, that much. Then I became interested in what they were wearing, and what they were doing."

Mr. Emmerson has spent hours restoring many of the photographs in the book, which don't always come to him in top condition. "It is fascinating to retouch using the computer," said Mr. Emmerson. "I scan very heavily and then go (zoom) in and in.

"Doing this, I meet people on the street. In photographs, I have found people poking from behind a tree. Probably, the photographer, 100 years ago, didn't know they were doing that."

He said sometimes you could see the expressions on people's faces and almost hear what they were saying.

"You meet the people," he said. "That has been the greatest joy discovering the life within the pictures."

He said there was so much in the book, you could never absorb it all in one or two sittings.

"I have identified the photographer wherever possible," said Mr. Emmerson. "But sometimes it has been impossible."

In the back of the book there are colour photos taken between 1948 to 1955, by his father, Gordon who was chief engineer at the Elbow Beach Surf Club for many years. "I do not have a photograph by well-known Bermudian photographer John Athill Frith (1835 to 1907)," said Mr. Emmerson.

"He is probably the photographer that intrigues me the most of the old Bermuda photographers. He was black. His parents were apparently slaves. Yet, he had a photography business in Bermuda, Cuba and Jamaica."

He said there are different things in the book to suit different tastes.

"There are sailing photos," he said. "There are street scenes that let you see the people and how things have changed."

He said the pièce de la résistance is a photograph he at first gave up on. The photo was taken in the 1880s of a street running by a high stone wall.

"At first, I looked at it and decided I could never figure out where it was," he said. "There wasn't enough detail."

But several years later he was looking at another photo taken in 1951, and spotted the wall again. This photo showed a building belonging to the Bermuda Railway, next door to the SOM Walker Christopher building.

The wall ran along what is now the bottom of Par La Ville Road towards the corner of Front Street and Bermudiana Road. "Par La Ville Road was cut for the trains," said Mr. Emmerson.

Two different photographers had stood in the same place to take a photograph in 1887 and 1951, not long after the railway was sold and the rails taken up. Both photographs are featured in the book.

'Historic Photographs of Bermuda' was self-published using a company called Blurb.

"It is fun to self-publish," said Mr. Emmerson. "It is not that hard given a little swearing, and those frustrations you have. (Laughter).

"I have looked at other companies but none of them had all that Blurb seemed to offer. I found their printing is extraordinarily good. I have been satisfied. I am working on about ten books. I have finished about four.

"Two of them were historic photos of Bermuda volume one and two. They were 80 pages."

Mr. Emmerson decided to put some of the volumes together into one book to commemorate Bermuda's 400th anniversary in 2009. "Only a small majority of the photos in the book have been printed before," he said. "Just over 50 percent have never been printed before. They are from private albums."

During the Queen's visit to Bermuda last year, she was presented with a copy of the book, numbered '007'.

Mr. Emmerson started as a photographer in the 1960s after a rather dismal school career.

He joined the Bermuda News Bureau, the photographic arm of the then Trade Development Board in 1963, and for the next six years had the good fortune to learn and work with such talented people as Butch Ray, Roland Skinner and the late John Weatherill.

He taught himself the art of Platinum Printing in 1980. "This is a very old photographic process from the dawn of photography," he said. "You mixed your own chemicals and painted them on archival paper.

"Then taking a negative the same size as the print you wanted to make (contact printing in other words), you would place it on the chemically painted paper and under glass expose it to the sun.

"After developing and clearing, the image you had was one hundred percent platinum embedded in the fibers of the paper."

He said it is considered one of the most lush and beautiful photographic processes ever invented and is the most archival of them all.

"It is known for its beautiful tonal range," he said.

The prints from the book are not available in platinum prints, but they are available from him for sale as archival black and white prints.

"I have to send off Island to get the archival quality," he said. "It takes a little longer than 'yesterday'."

Mr. Emmerson said so far, despite the price, 'Historic Photographs of Bermuda' has been selling well. "It rather startled me," he said. "There were many people who bought two or three as Christmas presents.

"Two people bought them for their children who weren't old enough to appreciate them yet. But they wanted their children to have them for later in life. They were thinking ahead."

For more information, e-mail Mr. Emmerson at emmersonnorthrock.bm or see his website at http://www.emmersonofbermuda.com/.