Telesnap Archives

We must be thankful to the photographer John Cura (real name Alberto Giovanni Cura) for having a visual record of many of the lost Doctor Who episodes. He ran a business between 1947 and 1968, capturing images directly from a TV screen which could be sold to actors and directors as a record of their work - in the days before video taped show-reels. About 70 - 80 images were taken from each programme.
Cura passed away in 1969.
Waris Hussein's Marco Polo episodes are the earliest to have been preserved in this way.
Other lost stories which are covered by Cura's "telesnaps" are:

• The Savages 
• The Smugglers
• The Tenth Planet Episode 4
• Power of the Daleks
• The Highlanders
• The Underwater Menace Episodes 1 & 4
• The Moonbase Episodes 1 & 3
• The Macra Terror
• The Faceless Ones Episodes 2, 4 - 6
• The Evil of the Daleks Episodes 1, 3 - 7
• The Abominable Snowmen Episodes 1, 3 - 6
• The Ice Warriors Episodes 2 & 3
• The Enemy of the World Episodes 1,2 4 - 6
• The Web of Fear Episodes 2 - 6
• Fury from the Deep
• The Wheel In Space Episodes 1,2,4,5

You'll see from this list that many classics are covered, but there are also notable absences - namely the entire run between Galaxy 4 and The Massacre. 

The DWB fanzine published photonovels of Power of the Daleks and The Moonbase, whilst DWM published the others, alternating episodes with their Classic Comics imprint.

In the same way that actual episodes sometimes turn up, so perhaps might the odd lost telesnap archive be found.