HOUSE OF MIRTH PHOTOS & EPHEMERA

ANNOUNCING the FOUND PHOTO ROOM on FACEBOOK

2012-01-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

We are pleased to announce our new Facebook page, "Found Photo Room!"

Found Photo Room, created by a small group of dealers/collectors, will be of interest to anyone who loves vintage photography.

Along with sharing some of our favorite images in galleries, we will be offering photographs that are available for purchase. We want our page to be an informative resource and will also be posting links to events, shows, related blog entries, and suggested reading. Check back often for newly available photos as we'll be adding more on a rotation. You may contact each seller personally for purchase information.

Please take a look and follow us:

FOUND PHOTO ROOM

All the best and happy looking!

Steve Bannos
Joel Rotenberg
Ron Slattery
Mark Sullo
Stacy Waldman
Erin Waters

A CONTEMPORARY PLATFORM FOR FOUND PHOTOGRAPHY by Jason Brinkerhoff

2012-01-17T13:23:00.000-08:00

Here is a project I have been working on for a couple of years with a good friend of mine who owns a gallery in New York City. Working loosely from the shows title, 'OTHER BODIES', we've assembled 65 photographs that present alternative views of the human form as found in vernacular snapshots. My goal with this show was to reconsider the context and strategies in which Found Photography is curated and distributed. The show works as a cohesive vision from the point of view of a collector/curator setting aside survey and categorical strategies. Each photograph is framed and presented for sale in New York's Chelsea art district.

The press release and additional images are available here: www.ziehersmith.com

A FAVORITE WINTER OR HOLIDAY PHOTO

2011-12-11T15:41:00.000-08:00

This month I asked a few collectors to share a favorite winter or holiday photo. Below are some terrific selections. Enjoy!

What I love about this image is twofold. First I find the picture both terribly funny, but also eerily disquieting. It's not quite in focus, and there's a lovely blurred area right of center. Tonally, the right hand side of the image and the figure of the little girl and the infant are more bleached out than the figures on the image's left hand side. The girl's face looms just a little too large, too close to the camera for comfort.

It's essentially a domestic scene, but one that is suffused with violence. Again, particularly unnerving is the pallid little girl with the crying (or yawning) baby. Her face is a still, blank slate in an image that is otherwise filled with movement and tension. Of course, the boys threatening the viewer and the dog with their toy guns are both funny but also (more than) a little sociopathic, especially the kid who holds the gun to the dog's muzzle. One wants to ask: what kind of family is this? And what kind of mayhem preceded the snapping of this image?

I think this leads to the second thing that appeals to me about the image: it somehow perfectly sums up my ambivalent feelings towards the holiday season: I find myself looking forward to it and its early evening darkness, warm fires, friendship and companionship, but also terrorized in some sense by the frenzied tyranny of family, forced gaiety, and overwrought gift giving. Underneath all the bonhomie, the forces of misrule, dysfunction and chaos are lurking, just waiting to emerge into the kind of weird anarchism evident in the image. The picture perfectly sums all that up, and also encapsulates my feelings about the "holiday season" in general--feelings which I realize, now, in writing this, to be more than a little misanthropic!

I saw the image originally on Ebay, bid on it, and lost. Sometime later, either a dupe or the same image was offered again. I snapped it up. It's still a favorite.

Nigel Maister

www.foundphotographs.com

For more info on Nigel, click here.

I love the expressions of excitement, happiness and joy on their faces. The emotions capture the feeling of Christmas day that I felt with my siblings. Their tiger costumes are a whimsical touch that reinforces the family bond. As there are no opened presents in the photo, I assume the costumes were the first gifts opened. As viewers of this photo, we can share in the expectant delights of a very special day which is just starting to unfold.

David Rheingold

For more info on David, click here.

I hope you enjoy this photo! It's actually shot indoors, in a studio. All the snow has been carefully painted directly on the photo. I love fake snow! I once illustrated a book about fake snow, which came inside of a fake snowball -- you had to smash it to get the book.

You can see they are both with cigar...

Ian Phillips
swimminginpictures.wordpress.com

For more info on Ian, click here.

Here's a Christmas/Snow snapshot I inserted into a snow globe from Goodwill. I shake it up and look at the snow falling in the water with the snow in the snap behind. Neither are real.

Photo by John Nichols of Photo by Anonymous.

For more info on John, click here.

If you are like me, for a fraction of a second you thought this was pornography.

Our brains are full of trash. But it seems to me media must have put a lot of it there.

Happy holidays, and bon appétit!

Joel Rotenberg

For more info on Joel, click here.

My selection is a circa 1920 real photo postcard that I purchased a couple of years ago. The card was not mailed and there is no documentation on the back, so the identity of the trio is a mystery. However, I'm not sure if we need to know more, the image is evocative and touching all by itself.

Robert Young

For more info on Robert, click here.

Polaroid, c. 1970. A color photograph about Christmas that is extraordinarily banal and cheerless.

Barbara Levine

www.projectb.com

For more info on Barbara, click here.

This photo is my all time favorite holiday related image, I love the subtlety of it. A million years ago, I thought of making my own line of Christmas photo greeting cards…

Sabine Ocker

For more info on Sabine, click here.

This one is subtle, an ice storm, it feels like a painting to me.

John Foster

www.accidentalmysteries.com

accidentalmysteries.blogspot.com
For more info on John, click here.

A simpler time.

Stacy Waldman

www.houseofmirthphotos.com

Me and Mrs. Claus in our younger days.

Santa Claus

North Pole

FOUND PHOTOS, FOUND MOMENTS by David Rheingold

2011-11-27T07:14:00.000-08:00

There's a Henri Matisse saying "Il y a des fleurs partout pour qui veut bien les voir," which translates as "there are flowers everywhere for those who bother to look." As an avid photographer and also as a collector of vernacular photographs, I'm always looking for fleeting, overlooked moments. Within these little miracles, I look for a sense of beauty or a an epiphany.

Unfortunately, the dust of everyday life blinds our sense to beautiful scenes. Matisse's soul was open to (thrived upon?) these moments, and he had a great talent to paint these moments. Fortunately, these moments can be also be documented by amateur photographers.

Ironically, it could be argued that the amateur's snapshot may be more likely to echo Matisse's saying than an art photographer's work. The amateur's photo is a spontaneous, heartfelt snapshot while the artist has a more measured, filtered approach.

My selected photographs champion the unknown photographer who recorded a special moment. While we don't know the photographer, perhaps the viewer can share the feelings the photographer experienced.

The "Clothesline" photograph presents us with a gently sloping clothesline which is kissed by a gentle breeze. The diaphanous garments illuminated by strong sunlight suggest a warm summer environment yet the leaf-less trees reveal a much different story. What makes this such an outstanding example of "flowers everywhere" is that this elegant laundry line represents one of the most mundane chores we all suffer through. As a final note, there's the wonderful ability of the photograph to capture the invisible force of the wind,which leads us nicely into the next photograph.

In "Convertible" we have some information written on the back of the photograph--"Jeanne - rather wind blown - in front seat of car - taken while riding along Sunday May 4th on way home from Washington." We really don't need this information, however, as we are immediately immersed into the feeling of a convertible on a stunning day. With just a simple snapshot of her blowing hair, we can all relate to the the youthful freedom of a road trip. The destination or purpose is not of importance. We just want to be part of a carefree moment that would perhaps be forgotten except for this photograph.

In "Tree Climbing" the photographer points the camera upwards (an unusual angle) at gently winding, leaf-covered branches. Amidst this canopy are a pair of legs poised for greater heights. A seemingly meaningless activity is actually one infused with a sense of exploration with a touch of risk, something we all experience on many levels throughout our lives.

"Cripple Creek Post Office" makes the eyes dance. We initially view this as dilapidated front that's a hodgepodge of shapes and colors, including a few missing marble tiles revealing domino-like dots. On closer inspection, however, we see a coherent quilt appear out of the randomness. From nature's deterioration of the panels and the door, and the human touches of the signs and posters, we have a tapestry of romantic decay.

I finish with "Pool" which has a classic snapshot feel. People relax by the pool with a grill smoking in the far right background. The photographer surveys the scene but drops the camera ever so slightly to capture the almost spiritual sunlight shining through the feet of people and then splashing onto the water. The three dimensional people and furniture became a contemplative two dimensional, abstract reflection. This photo reminds us to always look for reflective surfaces and savor their tableau they offer.

For more on David Rheingold, click here.

A LAWSUIT, PHOTOGRAPHY, AND AN IRONIC ENDING by Jimmy Leiderman

2011-11-15T10:04:00.000-08:00

It's 1906 in Auburn, New York.

Herbert Phayre, an Indian-born photographer, had established his studio in Auburn 6 years earlier, when he arrived from Canada and instantly became a frequent advertiser in local newspapers. Business was good.

Willard Hoagland, a well-built 5'11" and 170 pound man, originally from Union Springs, New York, was already a known figure in the running track and sporting circles after starting his athletic career in 1879. Hoagland's interest in sports went as far as umpiring major league baseball games in 1894.

Hoagland, now a 44 year old who was known as the 'Champion Heel and Toe Walker of the World,' decided to make a few extra bucks.

Image marketing by selling souvenir photographs at a track meet was not something new, as it had already paid dividends to other athletes. So why not test the market by working out a deal with Phayre's studio, the most prominent photographer in the city?

Hoagland visited Phayre and agreed on a package of 1,100 photographs at 2 cent each.

Below is the finished product and main object of the commercial dispute that followed the photo shoot.

By April of 1906, Phayre had obtained a judgment against the athlete in the amount of $26.60 (about $665 today) after Hoagland decided to 'walk away' from paying the photographer.

It comes as no surprise that local newspapers began to cover the news. Auburn had a population of about 30,000 by that year, so a legal feud between two of it's prominent citizens had to be the talk of the town.

Hoagland declared that he offered to do the 'square thing' with the photographer and pay for all the photographs that had been sold and return the rest to Phayre, even though the original agreement (according to him) was that the photographs were not to be paid for until completely sold.

A little more than 100 years have passed since the incident and it is not known how the dispute was resolved.

Phayre kept doing business as usual until his death in 1938. His business didn't become a casualty of the Great Depression and he even survived a 1931 fire that consumed his studio and nearly took his life. He lived for 68 years.

Hoagland put away his walking paraphernalia in 1912. After his retirement from the tracks, Hoagland served as a constable of the city of Auburn and even as Deputy Sheriff. He went on to be NY State's Game Protector for more than 20 years. He died in 1936 at the age of 74.

Both Phayre and Hoagland rest in Auburn's Fort Hill Cemetery just a couple of yards away from each other.

This guest blogger ended up buying one of Hoagland's photographs for exactly 1000 times the original price agreed by both him and Phayre back in 1906.

They must be laughing right now.

For more info on Jimmy Leiderman, click here.

WOW! BOY IN A DRESS - Part II by Pat Street

2011-11-03T14:35:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post, I suggested ways to determine the gender of children in nineteenth-century photos by examining the hair style. Another useful indicator of gender is clothing.* Almost all of the examples shown below are of boys, because it's very common for boys to be misidentified as girls, and quite rare for girls to be misidentified as boys.

1. TROUSERS Throughout the nineteenth century, no matter how fancy the outfit or how long the hair, if a child is wearing trousers of any kind, it's a boy. Girls were never seen in pants or trousers, whether long pants, below-knee pants, knee pants, or above-knee pants. The girliest-looking child, if wearing pants, is a boy.

2. BOW AT NECK If the child has a bow at the neck of any size, it's likely to be a boy.

3. COLLAR If the child has a big fancy ruffled cloth collar, usually with cuffs and a bow at the neck as well, it's almost certain to be a boy.

Girls wore fancy collars too, but girls' collars are generally in the "Bertha" style (large round lace or crocheted collars). Boys occasionally wore this style of collar too, but it was mostly a girls' style. These are girls.

4. SAILOR SUIT In mid-century, when European royalty began dressing the royal children in little military uniforms of the realm, sailor suits (or dresses with rows of braid or other sailor styling) became very popular for both boys and girls. Girls wore the middy top with a skirt, and so did many little boys. (Boy, boy; boy, girl)

5. LORD FAUNTLEROY SUIT In the mid-1880s, mothers began to dress their boys in the style of Little Lord Fauntleroy, a character in a children’s book. A Fauntleroy suit consisted of a jacket and skirt (or short pants) made of a luxurious fabric like velvet, worn with a full white blouse with enormous, elaborate, ruffled or lacy collar and cuffs. Girls did not wear this style.

6. DRESS All babies wore similar dresses, and it's really hard to determine gender if the child doesn't have enough hair to be styled. Sometimes it's best to go with body language. I think this child is a boy, but maybe it's a girl.

Dresses for children up to age five or so were pretty much unisex. This is a little boy from the 1860s named Eugene. Hair style is a better indicator for young children than dress style.

These are all boys.

And these are all boys, too. Some boys as old as ten or eleven wore dresses.

7. SUIT WITH JACKET If the child is wearing a suit, i.e., matching jacket and skirt or pants, it's probably going to be a boy. A girl would generally wear a dress rather than a suit.

8. JEWELRY The presence of jewelry won't usually help you decide whether a child is male or female. These children are all boys. The first boy is in playclothes, and his beads may be wooden beads he has strung on a shoelace, but the other boys are dressed in their best clothes. The boy on the right is wearing stud earrings, and the twin boys below are wearing small hoop earrings. (It was thought that pierced-ear earrings would improve a child's eyesight. This old wives' tale is also why pirates wore gold hoops in their ears.)

If you have a photograph for which you still can't decide gender after considering hair style and clothing, you may need to factor in the props, if any, and the pose. I'll address those elements next time.

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* I've developed these guidelines (and I've seen exceptions to almost all of them) from studying thousands of early photographs of children. If you think I'm off base, please let me know!

To see Wow! Boy in a Dress, Part I, click here.
Click here for more on Pat Street and other guest bloggers.

"PWI": PHOTOGRAPHING WHILE INTOXICATED by David Rheingold

2011-10-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

While drinking and driving don't mix, alcohol and cameras are a heady cocktail. Intoxicated people, especially normally reserved people, love the stages parties provide. People act like C-list celebrities desperate for paparazzi flash glare. Amateur photographers actually have quite an easy job as blurry or off center photographs just lend to the feeling of a party!

I love "On the Dock" as this is during Prohibition. A young woman tilts up a bottle while there's a subtle hike of her dress with a hand holding a cigarette. There's a strong sense that she's intoxicated, but there's also the hint of much more to come. Along these lines, there's also "Beer Can."

At some parties, not only do the social veneers come off. The clothes can come off, too. ("Umbrella" and "Belly Pinch".)

As the party goes on, there's a sense of delirium, and amateur photographers are quite adept at these shots. ("Flowers" and "Four Drunks".)

The key is to have a photographer who can outlast most party victims so that the final gasps of the party can be documented!

For more on David Rhiengold, click here.

TRICK OR TREAT! A FAVORITE HALLOWEEN PHOTO

2011-10-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

In this post 9/11 world of vampire books, zombies, the TV show True Blood, and the goth fashion scene it is not surprising that Halloween is probably America’s favorite holiday. Thus we respond to photos of old costumes and all of the rites and rituals associated with the scariest night of the year. It takes us back to our own childhood and the crazy getups we wore with such pride. This blog entry brings together some of the participants’ favorite Halloween photos which are sure to scare you, make you laugh, and perhaps give you a slight shudder. But no tricks here, just photo treats for the viewing. Enjoy!

This Halloween image grabbed me the moment I saw it. And, no, it's not about the brown shoes clashing with the black outfit. A fretful monologue begins in my mind as I find myself posing for the shot. I’m trapped in this stinking costume for the next two hours. The pre-formed mask reeks of glue and paint. I feel it’s canvas scratchiness grating my nose and I’m praying that I don’t have to go to the bathroom anytime soon. My breath is beginning to condense on the inside of the mask because there is no mouth hole. What fun can I have because even my friends won’t be able to recognize me? Who’s going to give me candy? No one. I’m too terrifying. Sheer panic grips me as I realize that in my blackness, I’m going to be the perfect target for older kids to hit me with eggs and flour-filled socks. Mommy, I’m scared! Please don’t send me out there!!!

Mark Rotenberg
For more on Mark Rotenberg, click here.
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If you've ever put on a dyed plastic body suit over your clothing you know it's not the most comfortable way to go for a walk. That's why it's impossible to forget the many times I dressed in one of those awful plastic costumes for Halloween. One year, my mother bought me a Luke Skywalker suit and a plastic mask so I could go trick or treating. I recall the sweat forming around my cheeks and under my nose. Other kids had better costumes made of actual fabric but I was just happy to collect a bucket worth of free candy. I love Halloween more than any other holiday and at times I wish I could still go trick or treating. On Halloween one could be wicked, heroic, an alien, a princess or whatever your imagination could conjure up. When I look at this photo I am immediately taken back to that happy time when I could hardly breath under my plastic Luke Skywalker mask.

Albert Tanquero
For more on Albert Tanquero, click here.
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While Halloween is all about the costume, often the scariest element is the jack o’lantern which sits on a porch or glows through the darkened window of a house. I love the simplicity of this scene and how the light of the candle in the pumpkin softly illuminates the girl’s face. Plus snapshots taken at night are extremely rare, which is another reason for this photo’s appeal. Now if she only could have had a mask on herself.......

Robert E. Jackson
For more on Robert E. Jackson, click here.
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Halloween isn't so important in Turkey; the Ramazan holiday is the time when children go from door to door asking for candy. Dressing up is popular of course and like all the best dress up photos, here you might think you know what's going on but you could be very wrong.

My blog, One Man's Treasure, is where I post photographs from my collection.

John Toohey
For more on John Toohey, click here.
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Funny how a mask changes everything, and makes the scene way more sinister. For me, it is because we can’t see their eyes. I love how they arranged themselves in this photo. Five girls, their names on the verso, three with their surname. Sisters? Cousins? Someone stands at the window watching the proceedings.

Janet West
For more on Janet West, click here.
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When I was a child, Halloween was fun, never scary. We dressed up as princesses, gypsies, pirates, witches, clowns, or ballerinas and our parents would take us to visit the neighbors on our dirt road -- Mrs. Ward, the Andersons, the Wolffs, Granny Kelly, and the Bennetts. All the kids would admire each other's costumes, and we would be given candy, drink apple cider, and sometimes even bob for apples. Horror didn't enter into the occasion at all. It looks as if this boy and his dog had the same sweet kind of Halloween in their neighborhood: all treat, no tricks. No doubt his mom made his costume (and the dog's) -- as our mom always made ours -- and lent him an old parasol. Mothers don't get enough credit.

Pat Street
For more on Pat Street, click here.
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There is a lot more to this small Halloween snapshot than first meets the eye. It captures a group of children before they don their homemade masks and transform into the ghoulish and slightly disturbing characters that are to be found in the photographs of Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Diane Arbus.

They have been distracted by something off camera and all bar one look away from the photographer – towards what we will never know! One side of the image is dark and contrasts with a ghostly flare of light hovering over the photographer’s shadow.

I don’t know exactly where this photograph was taken as the only information on the reverse is a penciled month and year – October 1946. To my eyes, the children look very American in their dungarees, striped tops and t-shirts which differ markedly from the clothing worn by their European equivalents at the time.

Orla Fitzpatrick
For more on Orla Fitzpatrick, click here.
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Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, if its a real holiday, and my wife Linda enjoys the season too. We have a big collection of vintage Halloween items and decorate the house most of the month of September. We have dozens of snapshots of kids and adults in costume and at parties. This was tough decision indeed! I chose this one as it could be any or all of us, but you will have to guess which is me! I'm not telling!!!!

Glenn Vogel

You can find Glenn set up at various shows on the east coast.

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While I own hundreds of them now, it's one of the first Pocket Kodak images I ever bought. I love the weird shadow, that it's crooked, and that the mask is shaded, making it even creepier. It's seemingly an old man mask, complete with glasses and whiskers, yet here we have the little boy in his sailor suit. I like photos with some kind of juxtaposition.

Erin Waters

For more on Erin Waters, click here.

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I love this circa late 1950's Halloween still life photo because it envokes the spirit without any kids wearing scary masks. It's a lovely composition, and the nose of the pumpkin transforms the image from sublime to silly. Wouldn't you want to go trick -or- treating at this house?

Sabine Ocker

For more on Sabine Ocker, click here.

AND THE WINNER IS. . .

2011-10-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

First a bit of a post-mortem. The premise of the contest now seems ridiculous: I wasn’t really asking you to identify photographers, but to read my mind—to guess what photographers I might have been thinking of, taking into account what you may know (or surmise) about me, my collection, and my knowledge of photography.

The terms of the contest were also flawed. What with all the public Facebook chatter, the bunch of you converged on the answers as a body, and to some extent maybe everyone was building on everyone else’s work. The results would have been more meaningful with a secret ballot. But then the whole thing would have been less fun.

A word about how the pictures were chosen. The clarity of the “equivalence” was the most important thing in my mind. You saw maybe a third of my candidates; I rejected the others because I thought they weren’t completely clear. There were photographers I desperately wanted to include, like Evans, Friedlander, and Nixon, but for one reason or another the perfect examples didn’t turn up. There are also innumerable people (Cartier-Bresson, Gutmann, Erwitt are a few that come to mind) who are the right kind of photographer, but would have been hard to bring to a sharp point—to parody, if you like—for the purposes of a game like this.

One rule I had to establish was that severe anachronism wasn’t allowed: the era of the snapshot couldn’t be glaringly out of synch with the era of the photographer being parodied. For example, I had a great “Friedlander,” a storefront with the silhouetted reflection of the photographer’s head poking up in the middle of it. But the picture antedated Friedlander by a couple of decades, and the silhouette-head was wearing a silhouette-hat. It would have been confusing, so I tossed that one and everything like it. For the same reason I didn’t feel I could include a color shot to represent a photographer who worked only in black-and-white, and vice-versa. Maybe I should have made this clear at the outset.

All right. Having gotten all that off my chest, here are the photographers I was thinking of. All were guessed by someone.

1. August Sander

2. Helen Levitt

No apologies—it’s a Levitt, man.

3. Robert Frank

The image is a bit clean and static for Frank, but the dashboard Mary or Jesus is a piece of quasi-vicious agit-prop that’s totally like him.

4. Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Uneasy figure in oddly detailed but mysterious setting, bathed in strong flash at sundown or sunup: to me it’s a giveaway.

5. Julia Margaret Cameron

6. Weegee

Am I off here? The woman looks to me like she’s mentally ill or a vagrant. That together with flash at night—who else could it be?

7. William Eggleston

8. E. J. Bellocq

Sorry for the confusion with this one. The pose suggests Bellocq, but I would not have included this if I had thought the subject was Asian. Also the picture isn’t anywhere near old enough.

9. Larry Clark

10. Cindy Sherman

I’m surprised at the argument. Maybe someone can tell me where I went wrong.

11. Gregory Crewdson

Possibly the scan isn’t what it should be (Polaroids can be difficult). But I am actually sort of proud of this one, because I’m not echoing any specific picture or pictures but taking a leap on his behalf. I don’t think I’ve seen this through-the-window angle in a Crewdson, but it’s got the house and street at night, the suggestion of a Spielbergian suburb, the mysterious occurrence. John P. proposed Jeff Wall—that’s close, because it catches the setup idea.

12. Diane Arbus

13. Mark Cohen

Is he too obscure? Check this out:

http://photographystreet.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/mark-cohen-street-photography-master/

14. Nan Goldin

And now the winners. Tied for first place are Mike Grinley and John Phelan, both of whom saw things my way in 10 cases out of 14 and each of whom will receive $10.00 credit at out.of.frame. Congratulations, Mike and John!

Tied for second place, with 9/14 apiece, are Maria DiElsi, Richie Hart, and Mark Sullo. Congratulations, Maria, Richie, and Mark!

Special mentions for firsts and/or onlies: Nick Osborn for diCorcia (#4), Richie Hart and Maria DiElsi for Weegee (#6) and Crewdson (#11), and John Phelan for Cohen (#13).

Thanks to all of you for playing my game!

Joel Rotenberg

NAME THAT PHAKE PHAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHER! by Joel Rotenberg

2011-09-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

These snaps have been selected for their resemblance to the work of actual, specific art photographers. The first House of Mirth reader to correctly (or plausibly) identify all 14 phake photographers will receive $10.00 credit with out.of.frame, my eBay avatar.

There are snapshot people who began buying snapshots as a way of getting cheap “equivalents” of the name art photography they couldn’t afford, and I’m sure there are people who still do it for the same reason.

I am in neither camp. I’ve never thought of snapshots as a poor man’s art photography. Nevertheless, everything I know about photography is talking to me when I look at snapshots and when I buy snapshots. I buy snapshots that remind me of other kinds of photos, snapshots that sort of remind me of art photos, and snapshots that remind me of specific art photos and photographers (along with plenty of snapshots that don’t remind me of much of anything).

I bought these, but I must tell you I am not proud of it. The snapshot pool is so gigantic and so varied that we really don’t need to copy existing photographers. The pool also contains “equivalents” of any number of other photographers, just as good, who could exist, but don’t. The collector’s question should be: Which of them can I copy?

To be fair to myself: when I buy found photos that remind me of the work of specific photographers, I suppose I am responding to the sheer accident of their existence, which is of course a large part of what foundness is all about. Most or all of what I buy owes its existence to one kind of accident or another.

Perhaps needless to say, the commonest “equivalents” are the ones that correspond to the photographers who learned the most from snapshot photography in the first place. “Diane Arbus” probably crops up the most often, because Arbus’s compositions are usually simple and frontal, very like the most common snapshot composition.

Joel Rotenberg

out.of.frame on ebay

The Art of the Snapshot?

Added by Joel: The photographers I had in mind will be announced in a week. The contestant who comes closest will win the prize. P.S.: To eliminate excessive subjectivity, all these judgments were discussed in my house. I used only examples that by consensus were pretty clear.

Please guess here or on my facebook wall under this post (Stacy Waldman)

Don't forget to submit a favorite Halloween photo. Deadline is October 9th.

LIFE'S A BEACH - A FAVORITE SNAPSHOT

2011-08-24T13:53:00.000-07:00

If the street is where both the fine art and amateur photographer go to strengthen their capacity to see with the camera and create an evocative tableau of sights, shadows, city life and movement, then the beach is where the snapshooter goes to have fun with the camera and relax. There can be a self-conscious artful “looking” found in street photography which isn’t present in snapshots taken on the beach. The images presented here evoke summer as no other photo subject can. They speak to the strong connection between leisure activity and snapshot photography. When people are half naked, something happens to them in front of the camera--they loosen up, laugh, sleep, relax, look sexy, or appear ridiculous. They fall in love, strike strange poses, wear funny sunglasses, get too much sun, and generally revel in their new found freedom from work and the cold of winter. These photos speak to all of that and more, causing us to smile and remember our own carefree summer days hanging out with friends, family and the ubiquitous camera which captured all of it.

I love having Snapshot People share their photos here. Some collectors ask to be included and some I ask to contribute. I try to get about ten images each time. For October, I'll be asking you to share one of your favorite Halloween images. Since this is a popular topic, I'm hoping to have a lot more than ten images. Bring it on!

The photos below are in no particular order.

The agony or ecstasy of the writhing figure plus the sign is most of what makes the picture. It probably would have worked somewhere other than a private beach, but I think the open water adds a little something.

Joel Rotenberg

For more information on Joel, click here.

I have several beach photographs in my collection but always come back to this one. Its perfect pose and lighting give it a magical quality. There are very few elements within the image: the boys, the beach, the ball and the sky but the balance and composition are exquisite.

I imagine a controlling father, probably a keen amateur photographer, directing the kids on how to pose. The long shadows hint that it was taken towards the end of a sunny day. One shadow stops abruptly, reflecting only half the boy whilst the other’s casts a direct line towards his playmate.

The photo is devoid of any recognizable landmarks or features. It was bought in Brighton, England, so it could be from along that South coast but then again it could really be from anywhere!

Orla Fitzpatrick

For more information on Orla, click here.

My favorite beach photo is also the first real photo postcard I ever purchased, back in 1980 when I was 18. Even though it was 30 years ago, I still remember the visceral thrill I experienced when first viewing what I have long thought of as my "Block Island Girls." I love how the photograph beautifully captures an era: the dresses, bathing costumes, and parasols of the six young women who are the focus of the image, as well as background details like the other beach goers and horse-drawn buggies. And then there are the compelling facial expressions of the women, which I have always thought provide intriguing clues as to what their personalities were like.

The postcard was mailed from Block Island, RI, on August 5, 1909, and was sent to a Mrs. A.L. Lockwood of Hartford, CT. The message (which I've always assumed was written by one of the young women to her mother) reads, "You'd best bring a sunshade, Ma. It looks kind of auspicious! Love, E.R.L."

Robert Young

Robert is boobob92 on flickr

Vintage hand painted photograph of beach in La Jolla, California, c.1955. This photograph is enveloping - I want to jump into the picture and go surfing (that would not be such a pretty picture!).

Barbara Levine

projectb.com - a world of vintage photographs, found artifacts, art and ideas - the obsession of Barbara Levine, curator, artist and author of Finding Frida Kahlo, Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing the American Photo Album and Around The World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums.

Here's a late-afternoon photograph taken on the east coast. The sun is setting behind the woman taking the photo, so she's captured not just the gorgeous children but her own shadow. The breeze is blowing the ribbon of her hat and has already blown off the little girl's bonnet, which now resembles angel wings. The presence of the woman's shadow prevents this image from being sentimental pictorialism, though that's probably what she was aiming for. On the other hand, maybe she just wanted a snapshot of the children.

The empty beach, the vastness of the sea, the Hansel-and-Gretel fragility of the children, the way the little girl looks up to her stalwart older brother -- the viewer's subconscious can take all this information and supply a rich archetypal narrative.

But I bought the snapshot for the composition.

Pat Street

www.patstreet.com

Sand flows through your fingers. Uncomfortable to grab. It's fluid, without structure. The upper midwest of my youth had lakes and boathouses. Perhaps a short nibble of a beach. Wooden piers were often our beaches. The dilapidated structures near the lake - our playhouses. I often wonder if our lives would have been different if there were miles and miles of sandy beach. How would we change? The environment of youth shapes the adult. I like to think that the linear objects that surrounded us - helped to form the midwest ethic. Strong, solid and uncompromising.

I'm never happy on the sand. It's always shifting. I look for structures to find comfort.

Ron Slattery

www.bighappyfunhouse.com

Being from the Jersey Shore, I have many opportunities to acquire beach photos and have hundreds of them. This one is, and will be, my favorite for a long time. It is a very recent eBay find. I love that the girl on the right is laughing at the girl on the left. She is getting her skirt wet doing what we call dancing in the waves. Trying not to do what has happened, only to have the camera catch her unaware as a gust of wind lifts her skirt showing her garter and undies! So the last laugh is on her!!

Glenn Vogel

You can find Glenn selling photos at various shows in the northeast. Up next is the Allentown Paper Show, October 1-2, and The Boston Photo Show, November 12th.

I really like this photo because of its simplicity and minimalism. The starkness is appealing since one often associates the beach with crowds and noise. It is one of my favorite snapshots.

Robert E. Jackson

For more information on Robert, click here.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE DOG PHOTO

2011-07-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

The entry on color snapshots was a resounding success and I thank everyone for their positive comments to me about it. While this selection has some returning contributors, there are new collectors who are sharing their photo and thoughts as well. Thanks to everyone for contributing to this entry on one of the most common subjects to be found in a snapshot.

Snapshots are about taking photos of things you love, things you see and have experienced, and things you have purchased. A snapshot of a dog is a surrogate for all of those things. To love a pet is to photograph that pet. And one of the most popular pets to own and photograph is a dog. And such photos often tell you as much about the owner as they do about the pet itself. Dog photos are timeless because the relationship between the owner and the animal hasn’t changed much since the dawn of the snapshot. The advent of computer usage hasn’t compromised or altered how we love our pets. We don’t share things with our dogs via Facebook or communicate with them via Twitter. Dogs require physical not digital contact. And nothing takes the place of petting your dog or playing with it-- not even a snapshot. This entry is not about a collector’s favorite photo of his or her dog, but rather a favorite photo of a dog they never loved or knew. The reasons why a snapshot collector would have a dog (or any kind of pet) photo in their collection is quite varied as you will see as you read on.

Next month is what is your favorite beach photo.

The photos below are in no particular order and Joel Rotenberg and Mark Rotenberg are not related. Enjoy!

I am a sucker for photos of anything flying through the air. I think it is because I respond visually to formalism in photography and oftentimes objects in flight framed against the sky are formally strong. Such imagery elicits a visceral response at first glance and this photo is a good example of that. My love of this photo postcard isn’t really due to a dog being the main subject of the photograph. Rather, this is a favorite of mine because the camera has caught the perfect moment of flight (halfway between where the object was and where it is going) with the animal being so clearly framed against a neutral background. And to see the man and his pet nearly eye to eye is startling and an added bonus.

Robert E. Jackson

For more on Robert, click here

Some dog in a camping trailer - I don't know all that much about dogs. Somebody told me dogs are pack animals. I mean, they run around in packs.

One day I went out back of my house and there were these two dogs, and they had one of my sheep in lock down. One dog had him by the nose, and the other dog had him by the asshole. Those are, somebody told me, the tender parts.

Well, I shooed those dogs away, and ever afterward (well, until I took him to the slaughterhouse), that poor sheep had two holes in his snout, where the one dog had him. I never looked at his asshole to see if he had any scars there.

Listen, I am a cat person. A cat couldn't be bothered. If it wants something (most of the cats are its, nowadays), it'll let you know. Otherwise, mind your own business.

To me, a dog is always sucking up. My friend says that's not true---the dog just thinks you're the alpha dog, and expects you to tell it what to do. If it gets the idea it's the alpha dog, it'll tell you what to do.

Anyway, if I was stuck on a desert island (why is it always a "desert" island? why couldn't it be a tropical paradise island?), I would take a dog. A cat would have fish and crabs, and it wouldn't need me. It would go off and be by itself.

As far as why I chose this photo---I give all the dog photos to my sister, I just happened to have this one lying around. I do like that white line. I like the frame within a frame. I like the tilt. Oh all right, I kept this little photo for myself. I have got dozens more to give my sister.

John Van Noate aka Mr. Waterslide on Flickr

Nice job by someone. As usual, though, it’s difficult to know if we’re taking it in the spirit in which it was intended. One imagines the witty tinter is the same as the witty photographer whose shadow we see, but the wit may very well have actually been mere childishness in both cases. Most of the humor comes from the way the tinter has emphasized the intrusive and irrelevant elements—that is, their intrusiveness and irrelevance. But somehow I doubt it was meant as a joke. As I reconstruct the tinting, it was perfectly logical. The dog, the primary subject and central element, came first. Then the tinter thought the hand was too strong a presence to ignore. Finally, the house was added for balance. Note the second and third shadows.

Joel Rotenberg

The Art of the Snapshot?

We think of photographs as proof of existence / truth, alive or current although we know that the subject in the image has aged and not current at all, perhaps even decided.

Looking back at the newness of the silhouette photo it is plain to see that it has a similar path as the photogram in that it was a new creative way to use the camera. It started and then just influenced other photographers and hobbyists to follow. The subject matter was limited to humans, doing all sorts of things reading, smoking pipes, playing guitars, kissing, even sitting with pets but in a very short period of time the ideas and the newness of the silhouette was unfashionable. I believe it would have lasted longer and morphed into something else once the human was removed and opened the door for still lifes, flower arrangements as happened with the photogram. The use of the animal as the sitter seems like a start to me. It would be as if you had Fido's portrait painted in shades of grey. Still living due to the indirect soft focus.

Randall de Rijk

For more on Randall, click here

I have over a thousand vintage and antique images of children with dogs. I chose this candid snapshot because it captures an aspect of the child/dog relationship that almost never comes through in a photograph – the joy of simply being together and quietly communing. You know from this image that this boy and this dog are best friends -- they romp and wrestle, run and swim, play fetch and tug-of-war, and that at night the dog probably sleeps at the foot of the boy’s bed. This shot was a lucky one for the snapshooter, who happened along at just the right moment.

In addition to showing the essence of what it means to love a dog and have the dog love you back, this snapshot has all the attributes of a great image -- composition, content, clarity, contrast, and condition -- making it a lucky find for me. I wish I knew who the photographer was.

Pat Street

For more on Pat, click here

Yes, folks, meet Snooki, the original 1920s Jersey Shore dog-about-town. In his day, this playful rogue was a dashing, debonaire doggie with swagger and style. Always on the lookout for a good time, or misplaced bone, this perspicacious pup was ahead of his time, sporting the first pair of Foster Grant sunglasses made expressly for the charismatic canine. Born a lowly, carousing quadruped, Snooki strove to elevate himself in life and, after a protracted period of bow-wow debauchery, he devoted himself to a life of upright actions and higher vision.

Mark Rotenberg

For more on Mark, click here

I've had this photo a long time and remember paying 10 cents for it a flea market in Florida. I love the very serious look and upright posture of the white dog and what looks to me like a laugh and a relaxed position of the dark dog. I don't know what the hand is doing.

Clare Goldsmith - has been collecting photos since 1997, and her collection has been shown at Panopticon Gallery in Massachusetts.

A primal howl, domesticated by the pet owner with a camera.

Maria DiElsi

The Artway Project Blog

The Artway Project on Kickstarter Please help fund!

THE ARTWAY PROJECT - PLEASE HELP FUND THIS IMPORTANT ARCHIVE

2011-07-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

In 2005, my friend Maria DiElsi, received thousands of negatives, prints and photographic ephemera belonging to Alexander Artway, a man who emigrated to the United States from Russia in 1922.

Throughout his life, Artway made photographs. He left an archive of over 5000 negatives and prints of Russia, New York, Philadelphia, and more - each one meticulously crafted and beautifully conceived. Most were made during the 1930's and range from iconic images of Manhattan to earthy illustrations of his Russian family working the land.

Maria is raising funds through Kickstarter to organize an exhibition of his vintage prints, along with contemporary prints made from his negatives; and to produce and illustrated biography/exhibition catalog using Artway's own photos to tell his sory and the history of an era.

On September 23, 2011, Gallery 1125 in Philadelphia will be hosting a premier exhibition of The Artway Project featuring vintage prints as well as contemprary silver prints made from vintage negatives. Please take a looke at the photos and video below and help in getting this important show made.

I hope to see you at the show!

Stacy Waldman

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR SNAPSHOT AND WHY?

2011-06-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

When I had this idea for a blog entry, I never realized that it would generate so much excitement and participation. Thanks to everyone for making the deadline and for contributing such awesome photos and comments! The whole reason I started this blog 2 years ago was to help create an on-line community of people who love vernacular photos, a place where we all could share our thoughts and collections with the rest of the photo world. And I think it has been a success in a lot of ways. I have some great ideas down the line to make this blog even more of a community and as always, I appreciate any suggestions you might have as well. It is your participation and contribution which makes this blog work. I can’t do it alone.

Many collectors of vernacular photography will tell you that color photography is one of the most difficult areas in which to find great photos. Partly that is due to the fact that color film appeared relatively late in the history of the photography and thus there are arguably less color photos out there than black and white. In the snapshot world, it wasn’t until the late forties to early fifties that color became affordable such that the ordinary person could buy color film for their cameras. And color stabilization and fading are also issues to contend with, although often the imperfections are what make such photos a compelling addition to someone’s collection. It will probably take another generation for the color hippie photos, the Woodstock photos, the protest photos of the sixties on to come to the marketplace. So the fact that this entry contains so many wonderful color photos is a real testament to the collectors’ hard work in searching through bins of flea market photos, getting up early to scoop the competition, and having a great eye for the material.

I think the next entry where I will be soliciting photos will deal with a collector’s favorite dog photo. So start looking through your respective collections. But for now, just soak in the color and commentary of what these collectors have uncovered...... Stacy Waldman

In no particular order.........

I love images of people acting out, being strange, or simply being outrageously themselves. I have always felt like an outsider and so I'm attracted to photographs of people who don't fit into the "normal" box.

I'm not sure why this guy decided to turn a shower curtain into a superhero costume. He was really working it out!!! Look at the detail of that fine cape. Maybe he was going to a Halloween bash? Or dressing up for his lover? Not sure. Whatever the reason, I'm so happy to see someone ballsy enough, no pun intended, to just be themselves. And it makes me laugh every time I see it. That's why people take snapshots - so they can remember the "good times".

Albert Tanquero

www.thefound.com

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I have never believed in zombies, so what can I say about this photo? Strange? Absolutely!

As always, your guess would be as good as mine if trying to analyze this photograph. Is this young girl looking directly at the sun? Mesmerization is a word that pops into my head. What's she looking at? And she is not just looking—she is absolutely hypnotized at something above, in the sky. The return of the mother ship perhaps? I like that. The wide open and parched mouth — this portrait has so much to tell us if you look at storytelling. The washed out color, and the light which appears to be strongest on the subjects head—all of these things add up to a big checked box in the Accidental Mysteries category of snapshots.

I like the strange, the odd, the unusual. And why not? The flip side of that is familiar and boring—it's what we have to wade through to find something worthy and interesting.

Lastly, I have never liked photographs of human beings who are afflicted with obvious disabilities or who are mentally challenged. Perhaps this is one, but no one can be sure about this photo. So I am going with this photograph as just one of those awkward moments that speak to another level.

John Foster

Accidental Mysteries

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I love color photography, for it is seductive. We might think in black and white, but we dream in color. There is a specificity to a color photograph which is in contrast to the universality found in black and white imagery. To me, color is as much the subject in a color photograph as any other element to be found there. Color photography is contemporary because the past which is recorded and remembered is the same hue as our own. It does not exist in the gradations of grey and black or sepia-tones associated with the distant past. It is now. It is both cool and hot at the same time.

The photo I have selected is a Kodachrome. Larger than most and enigmatic in its content. It might not be an actual snapshot by some standards, but rather a photo taken for a screen test or a fashion magazine spread. All I know is that this image haunts me. The blue which permeates the scene captivates while being muted to an almost inky indigo. The woman is beautiful but not young. Why is she in a field of sunflowers? And what possessed her to be in that field in a satin dress? She doesn’t look at the camera, but is focused on something outside the photo’s frame as if in some twilight reverie. I am drawn to that woman and the mystery of the moment in a way that I wouldn’t have been had she not been recorded for eternity in color. Yes, seductive. Quite.

Robert E. Jackson
For more information on Robert E. Jackson, click here.

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This is a wonderful photo by any standard, and all the more wonderful for being a snapshot. I would point out the casual rigor of its composition; the great faded red-green palette that only a Kodacolor can have; the mystery of the scene (coming or going? posed or not? friends, or something else? looking at what, and why?); its lurking sexiness (women alone, the American road, motel bedrooms); and finally the perceptible echoes of name art photography (Cindy Sherman, Henry Wessel).

I’ve had this picture for a long time. When I bought it, in a junk shop in a small town near Salton Sea, California, I was told that one of the two women was the daughter of Tom Mix.

Joel Rotenberg
The Art of the Snapshot?

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Poker dice. Important roll. No interest in the photographer. Green canvas chair/green metal glass. Just a stunning ,1955 color snapshot.

Cheryl Ohland
Lablover49 on eBay

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I've had this image for a long time and it always makes me smile. I love that the camera has taken over her face except for one closed eye. I think it pulls you in, as a viewer, because you are being photographed. I expect to see the flash go off. And, the caption is great. I also love her teased red hair.

Clare Goldsmith - has been collecting since 1997, and her collection has been shown at the Panopticon Gallery in Massachusetts.

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Here's my favorite color photo: Nothing fancy - just an Arbus-ian old man standing in the backyard holding fish rendered in about as perfect an example of late 50s/early 60s kodacolor as you'll find. What's not to love?

Nicholas Osborne

theboatlullabies.tumblr.com

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Poolside, c.1970

I love vintage color photographs – from the folk art quality of early hand painted photos (the messier the better!) to the interesting ways the dyes fade out in 1950s Kodacolor images, to the dreamy saturated colors of old Polaroid photos– it is hard for me to pick a favorite because I like them all!

Poolside, c.1970 is a good example of composition and color being completely integrated in a photograph. You can feel the sun in this picture. The bright blue sky, the shine on the woman’s skin, her swimsuit being the same color as the building and the contrasting similarity in color between the lounge chairs and the white fence all add up to a strangely appealing photograph. The color in this photograph simultaneously reads as both literal and abstract. If the color was stripped out of the image - if it was a black and white – the photo would not so neatly evoke a sense memory of summer (or be a reminder to wear sunscreen!).

Barbara Levine

projectb.com - a world of vintage photographs, found artifacts, art and ideas - the obsession of Barbara Levine, curator, artist and author of Finding Frida Kahlo, Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing the American Photo Album and Around The World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums.
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What I love about this photograph is it's disorienting formal qualities. Where are these two people? Which way is up? What is going on? The poster on the ceiling or top bunk adds to the dynamic composition. The faces are buried. Is this play or fight or love? These tangled legs are caught in perfect frozen harmony, creating a snapshot that conveys a mysterious almost psychological type of abstraction.

Jason Brinkerhoff
Snapshots from Jason's collection will be at this NYC gallery in the Spring of 2012

WOW! BOY IN A DRESS! by PAT STREET

2011-05-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

Ever see an item title on eBay like “CDV BOY IN A DRESS! OMG! WOW!!” or “ADORABLE LITTLE GIRL IN OVERALLS 1892”? Sellers should know: there is nothing amazing about a boy in a dress, and it’s extremely unusual to find a nineteenth-century girl in overalls or trousers of any kind. If you’re selling an old photograph and are in any doubt, call it a child, not a boy or girl.

To determine the gender of a child in an antique photograph, you have to remember that the styling of children in the nineteenth century was very different from the styling of children today. Before 1900, boys wore dresses and had long hair until they were five or six (or older), when they were “breeched” (graduated to trousers) and got their first haircut (not necessarily in that order). Still, there are ways of telling young boys from girls. Think “Hair, Clothes, Props, Pose.”

First, if you’re lucky, a name will be written on the back of the photo. Don’t jump to conclusions, though – someone may have thought a boy was Aunt Mabel because he’s wearing a dress. (You also have to keep in mind that boys’ names included Marion, Shirley, Beverly, Evelyn, Vivian, etc.)

The guidelines I give below apply generally to photographs of children in North America and Europe. All of my examples are of caucasian children, but the guidelines also apply to children of other ethnic groups. Note: I have seen exceptions to every one of these guidelines, and I’ll show you some later on. Today, I’m talking about hair -- next time, clothes.

HAIR

With or without a name to help you, hair style is the most reliable indicator and the first thing to consider.

• Throughout the nineteenth century, girls wore their hair parted in the center, and boys wore theirs with a side part. This rule was so inflexible that sometimes it’s the only way to tell the gender of a child. BUT THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. (Below: boy, girl, boy; girl, boy, girl)

• Boys often wore their hair in long ringlets or curls, sometimes even with hair ribbons. If it’s parted on the side, it’s a boy; if it’s parted in the center, it’s usually a girl. (Boy, boy, girl; boy, boy, boy; boy, girl, girl)

• Here’s a set of twins from around the turn of the century –Floyd and Florence. Notice the way their hair is parted. (Boy, girl.)

• Mothers often coaxed boys’ hair (not girls’) up into a center ridge or wave, which could be quite extreme. This Kewpie-wave was sometimes started when baby boys had hardly any hair. When a child’s hair was a bit longer, often there was a center curl tumbling down onto the boy’s forehead. (These are all boys.)

• Sometimes when a child was ill with a fever, his or her head was shaved, so occasionally you may find a photograph of a girl with extremely short hair, sometimes pulled tightly back, or a bald head. (These are girls.)

Coming soon: How to tell gender by clothes.

For more information on Pat Street, click here

FINDING CARMEL BENNOON by ALBERT TANQUERO

2011-04-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

Carmel Bennoon. A name on a Junior College ID - the only clue I had when I first bought this collection of about 100 photobooths and snapshots, of the same woman over the course of her life.

Photobooths can be found at almost any market, but 100 of the same woman is something magical. I bought the lot about three years ago, from vendors at Kane County Flea Market - just north of Chicago.

They had cleaned out an estate and it turned out that a couch had a small box of photobooth pictures inside of it. A rather peculiar place to store your snapshots, I’d say. Apparently, there were no direct relatives to inherit the photos.

When I got home and had a chance to analyze the collection, I wondered who this woman was. I was amazed to see a young girl turn into a mature woman in a matter of minutes. She was aging right before my eyes - gracefully, as she was always quite beautiful and stylish.

I ended up doing some research and found out that she was Jewish of Eastern European descent, had grown up on the north side of Chicago and ended up becoming a high school teacher. I looked at the photobooths wondering what Carmel had thought of as the camera clicked. Did she ever find love? Was teaching what she had expected? How did Chicago treat her? And did she feel content later on in life?

In these photos I saw someone who was poised, beautiful, strong, melancholic, and at times disappointed. In reality, when I looked at the photos I saw myself.

All of us that collect or enjoy snapshots are looking at a reflection of something…of humanity. We are seduced by feelings of nostalgia, hoping to go back in time to revisit something lost or unresolved. Mortality looks us right in the eye and we can’t let go. I’m sure Carmel experienced happiness in her life. I see the sparkle in her eyes all the way to the very last photos taken of her. And what more can you ask for than moments of happiness?

I treasure this collection more than any of my other photos. It’s one woman’s life encapsulated in small 1 1/2 x 2 inch cuts of paper. Above is a sample of some of the photos from the collection.

Click here to see what Albert has done with other photobooths from his collection

Click here to see Albert's site on ebay

LONESOME by JOEL ROTENBERG

2011-04-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

Snapshot people tend to get interested in genres and categories and restrict their collecting habits accordingly. Most of the entries in this blog focus on one or another such aspect of the larger enterprise.

But art is all about feeling, photography is all about feeling, and snapshots are all about feeling. What else could they be about? Nobody’s been talking about that.

“Feeling” can be a subtle thing. Let’s not be subtle. Here I’ve tried to use snapshots to nail one simple and very specific feeling that I happen to like. The snapshooters didn’t put it there. So who did?

The idea that a composition or other formal feature might be unintended is easy to understand: with billions of snapshots, there’s going to be a measurable number of such accidents. It’s a little harder to see how a feeling (one people agree about) could be unintentional.

The key is that when a snapshot “has” a feeling for us, that feeling arises not just from its subject but, crucially, from its formal properties, which can in turn be unintentional—or at least due to some original nonexpressive purpose we can only guess at. For instance, consider the subject’s interesting remoteness from the camera in most of my examples—its “lostness” within the frame. If this wasn’t a complete accident, it might conceivably have come about in some cases because the photographer was hoping to catch the subject unawares, or just thought it was a good idea to include the subject’s surroundings in the shot. But we read it quite differently. The feeling we pick up (and can’t help picking up) comes from formal properties that almost certainly weren’t intended to carry it—properties that, before these pictures got yanked out of their original context, didn’t carry it.

Now that is a strange state of affairs. Nobody created the feeling. However, I took it from there. Part of what snapshot collectors notice, choose, and assemble has to do with emotional tone. Here I’ve drawn attention to one such tone (which might not have been that striking in any one picture) by bringing together a lot of examples of it.

And, more broadly, I’m also trying to draw attention to this aspect of what snapshot collectors do, or can do. Artists who use found objects are usually interested in something about the look of them (as opposed to the mere fact of them). Duchamp’s original readymades are a good example—their elegance is part of the joke. But snapshots, which are found objects of a kind, have not just a found look, but a found emotional tone. Does any other kind of found object give you that to play with? I don’t think so.

For more information on Joel Rotenberg, and other guest bloggers, click here.

FOR BETTER OR WORSE by STACY WALDMAN

2011-04-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

Did they have happy lives together or did they feel trapped? Here, some share a joke and others appear stern, à la American Gothic. We'll never know what their lives were like, but we can imagine.

FOUR SHOWS ON THE EAST COAST WHERE YOU CAN COME BUY PHOTOS IN PERSON

2011-02-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

Below are four shows where I'll be setting up in the next few months. Other Photos dealers that you may see at one or more of these shows are: Erin Waters, David Chow, Stu Butterfield, Glenn Vogel, Thomas Harris, Richie Hart, etc. Hope to see/meet you there:

1. DC Antique Photo Show, Sunday, March 13th antiquephotoshow.com

2. NYC Photo Show, Saturday, March 19th usphotoshows.com

3. Allentown, PA Paper Show - Saturday, April 30th and Sunday, May 1st. www.allentownpapershow.com

4. Boston Book & Paper Expo, Saturday, May 7th www.bookandpaperexpo.com

JUST A BUNCH OF PEOPLE STANDING AROUND by JOEL ROTENBERG

2011-01-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

Not much to see here but a lucky arrangement of otherwise uninteresting elements.

In his recent post, Robert Jackson mentions the psychological resonance that double exposures can have: as with classical surrealist disjunctive imagery, the viewer can’t help trying to relate the component images.

The snapshots shown above are simpler. Though what I am about to say is far from completely true of all my examples, ideally this class of picture has no psychological resonance at all, no mystery, nothing to make you think, no thematic content—none of that stuff that other kinds of photos have. And they’re not freaky; they don’t bomb you with strangeness. So what’s left? I chose them because they’re little more than accidental compositions. I tried to get rid of everything else. If they have a subject, we’d have to say they’re about accident itself—about what’s at the heart of the snapshot. These are snapshots purged of everything irrelevant, stripped down to what is snapshottiest. From a certain point of view I think they are about as pure as snapshots can be.

Though so mundane that they are essentially empty, at the same time they are as statistically improbable as any good snapshot. Cases differ, but in a general sort of way we might say that what is most fortunate in a good double exposure is the choice of the two superimposed images; their precise registration is less important. But an accidental composition is all about precision. A fraction of a millimeter’s change in the position of the elements could very often destroy it.

Click here to find out more about Joel Rotenberg

THE DOUBLE-EXPOSURE by ROBERT E. JACKSON

2011-01-11T13:19:00.000-08:00

A photographic double-exposure is created when the same piece of film is exposed twice, such that two images are superimposed on top of each other. This often occurs because of a mistake in the manual winding of film to the next frame. As found in the snapshot, the result can be the creation of an amazing piece of unintentional genius which is viewed as an artistic achievement by many collectors. But the double-exposure, accidently created via the mechanics of taking a photo, is more often than not removed from any real artistic inclination on the part of the photographer. It is not related to what the photographer saw, but rather to what the camera saw. In other words, the photographer took the photo (or photos), but the camera made the resulting double image. And yet it is the snapshot collector who provides the final stamp of approval that the mechanical “mistake” is worthy of being sought after, bought, and elevated to a proud place in his or her collection. Of course the mere fact that the photograph still exists is due to some sort of selection process in which the snapshooter engaged—that is the decision to keep the photo instead of throwing it away. However, one should be cautious about giving the original owner of the photo too much credit.

In any case, these mysterious and enigmatic photos thankfully remain to be appreciated and read as strange photographic hieroglyphics-the viewer having often to visually decode the piece in an attempt to appreciate it as more than the sum of its parts. The viewer sees in the double-exposure what is desired to be seen. The result is a more personal and subjective response to the visual information provided within the photo than is often found within the straightforward narrative of the snapshot. Thus, in my mind, the double-exposure has the distinction of being the rarest and most visually complex image found within snapshots.

But outside of a small group of passionate collectors, there is not much critical interest in this snapshot genre. Museum curators, while they might like the images personally, are not really ready to devote much wall space exclusively to the images; and academics are not inclined to devote much critical thought to the subject of double-exposures. This is because the images were created by a mechanical failure of a machine and as such are immune to some visual or historical context in which the curator or academic can place them. The double-exposure image is an accident, pure and simple (and one has to be careful to distinguish a double-exposure from a trick photo where there was true intent by the photographer involved). You cannot compare such photos to imagery which the photographer might have seen and thus imply that they are historically relevant in some manner. These photos don’t have a sociological basis for their creation. They aren’t tied to some cultural influence. They don’t speak to the emergence of an awakening of creativity and empowerment related to gender identity or sexual preference. They didn’t happen as a response to the emergence of the American Dream and the economic impulses to document wealth or status. In sum, they exist apart from history itself. Yes, they might resonate via the accidental strains found in the art of Surrealism and Dadaism and the shifting planes of imagery as seen in Cubism and photocollage, but such visual precedents perhaps only account for why the double- exposure has been saved and appreciated. It doesn’t explain why they exist and can be so haunting and compelling. Thus they provide the community of academics and museum curators with a problem related to artistic intent and influence. They are pure imagery in its most basic form. And they can be unlike anything found in the photographic world.

For more on Robert E. Jackson, click here.

CONDITION SCHMONDITION, PART II by PAT STREET

2010-11-21T16:47:00.000-08:00

Here are a dozen more images in poor condition that made it into my collection — some of them precisely because they were damaged. These show additional types of damage, several of which were inflicted by well-meaning people who believed they were enhancing the photographs.

13. Here’s a sweet real-photo postcard (RPPC) of a young couple. Someone, probably the young woman in the photograph, has cut slits around the oval image and woven a pink silk ribbon through the slits, finishing with a bow. A charming touch, but many serious collectors of photographs would dismiss this one.

14. Once people were able to take their own snapshots, many amateurs gave hand-tinting a try. Here’s an example from the 1930s of amateur colorizing gone wild. The artist was quite careful about it — note the turkey’s head meticulously separated into two red blobs by the small tree on the left. But the vivid red he or she chose makes those turkey heads glow like neon. I love the effect.

15. Here we have a cabinet card of “Mr. Walter L. Martin at the age of 10.” This is a drastic retouch job done with an opaque paint, possibly gouache, and ink. His eyes, nostrils, and upper lip have been inked in (see detail), and someone (the photographer or an artist in his employ?) decided the portrait would look better with extreme shading of the background: darker on the light side of the head, lighter on the dark side. They were right, but they should have thought of that before making the exposure, and a steady hand with the paintbrush would have helped.

16. When you collect ephemeral items like antique and vintage photographs, you often have to rummage through bins or boxes of unsleeved images. Of course, these photos suffer additional damage every time someone looks through them. Other images, like this one, perhaps spent fifty years or so in this shop’s junk drawer, accumulating scratches and scuffs every time somebody looked for a screwdriver. If perfect, this RPPC would go for a couple of hundred dollars. It’s so worn that it’s limp, but it’s still a fabulous interior shop image.

17. Decisions, decisions. My imagined narrative here is that this guy’s wife left him for another man. Then this guy angrily thought about throwing away this RPPC portrait, but wait, he really liked how he looked in this portrait of himself, so he cut his wife out of the image. He wanted his entire body in the part he kept, which meant he had to keep his wife’s hand on his shoulder, and had to keep enough of the writing on the back to still say “Mr. and Mrs.”

18. Severe fading in a photo often makes it lose its power, but in this 1893 cabinet photo of Ava and her dog, it adds a dissolving, ethereal quality. I like Ada’s focus on the dog and the dog’s focus on the ball. Life is transient; let’s play.

19. Many an old silver print has been “ruined” by silvering, but sometimes the effect is quite beautiful. Here’s a young cowboy and his dog. There’s lots of silvering, which shows up blue in a scan. The image is underexposed: possibly in a studio, but I like to imagine that they’re sitting by a campfire. The sidelighting is evocative.

20. Insect damage can take several forms. Here’s an example of an RPPC damaged by flyspecks. I often see this kind of damage on images of African Americans. I hope these two well-dressed, self-possessed boys did well in life despite thousands of small slurs and setbacks.

21. Here’s another RPPC with insect damage. Not only have insects nibbled off much of the surface of the photograph, leaving a lacy effect, but they’ve tunneled right through the card (and possibly through other photographs in a stack). I gave this one a red backing so you could see the insect holes. Often insect holes are perfectly round (see hole at bottom), as if made by a tiny hole-punch.

22. Trimming counts as damage, but I love this RPPC image and I also love that someone else appreciated it enough to trim it to fit in a frame.

23. This RPPC has an undivided back, so it’s from before 1907 when, by law, only the address could be written on the other side. This meant that the message, if any, had to go on the picture side. Sometimes people came up with creative designs for their message, so as not to obscure the photograph. This arrangement of writing gives an almost woven effect.

24. This RPPC was torn right in half when I bought it. I love the little tableau it shows. The donkey is glaring at the photographer; the boy is pleased as punch; the mother is proudly looking on from the doorway; and inside the shop window, behind a row of sample cabinet photographs, two women are watching the entire proceedings.

So: What condition is your condition in? Writing these posts has made me examine my collection in a new way. Don’t waffle about buying a great photograph just because it has damage. And keep your eyes open for images with condition issues that actually enhance them.

For more information on Pat Street, click here.

AN INTRODUCTION TO WILLIAM CARRICK (1827-1878) by ERIN WATERS

2010-11-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

When my parents and I were in St. Petersburg in the spring of 2001, my dad suggested that we try to find William Carrick’s studio at 19 Malaya Morskaya (Petite Morskoi). The street is still there, of course, in the very center of the city near St. Isaac’s Cathedral. We found the probable building and snapped a few photos out front and in the much older looking courtyard. I’d known about Carrick for quite a while and was working on my senior thesis on Russian photography and empire. Thanks to Carrick’s work, I could picture the late imperial population that used to stream by his door. Carrick would pick his subjects out of the crowd, enticing them with a free photo and probably a cup of tea. His photos show all classes of Petersburg - the droshki driver, the babushka selling apples, the fighting street urchins, the young nun, the Sultan (what I call him), and the Imperial Guard. Contemporary reviews heralded Carrick’s photographs as capturing the true Russian, as an educational tool and as artistic gems.

Years before our visit I had bought my first Carrick photos at Brimfield (with my dad’s help) in the form of a little souvenir book of 18 hand tinted cartes de visite picturing various of his Russian types. Before that long-ago Brimfield, friend had sent me an article about Carrick soon after I started studying Russian. His note said something like, “You should collect these. No one else does.” Of course, with Russians now avidly collecting their heritage, that’s no longer true. I’d like to give a brief Carrick introduction here, along with examples of his work drawn from my collection.

William Carrick was born in Edinburgh in 1827. Soon after he was born, his parents moved to St. Petersburg. His father and grandfather were timber merchants and Carrick lived nearly all of his life in Russia. Eschewing the family business, Carrick decided to be an artist and studied architecture at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. In 1853, he went to Rome to build a portfolio. Soon after returning to Russia, he escorted his younger siblings to Edinburgh, where he met his future photography partner, John MacGregor. In 1859, they opened a studio in St. Petersburg. As far as I’ve been able to tell, Carrick only made paper photographs, although he could have experimented with other mediums and most definitely met photographers in his time in Europe.

In 1859, St. Petersburg was the seat of the monarchy and the social center of the Empire. Tsar Alexander II’s reign brought the Great Reforms, including the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. In 1859, Scotland’s Astronomer Royal visited Russia and noted, “there is scarcely a more frequent sign to be met with along the principal streets, than PHOTOGRAPHER; and all the specimens...were among the finest things we have ever seen in that line.”^[1] Carrick hoped to be a portrait photographer, but met with much competition in this regard and his mother wrote letters attesting to his struggles. Carrick turned to copy work and began to photograph the myriad of people that appeared outside his door, the Russian types for which he is now best known. Carrick wrote that some of his subjects “were so unaccustomed to scientific manipulation that they expressed great alarm at the operation...fearing the camera would explode.”^[2] Carrick’s photographic types were soon receiving praise from the royal family and, as their presence in European and American albums attests, from tourists and members of the upper classes.

Carrick and MacGregor did not only stay in the studio. In their cabinet cards and CDVs, there is a sampling of outdoor work throughout the city. In the 1870s, the pair traveled around European Russia photographing people and places. Today, these images are often mounted into albums or found as loose albumen photographs. While many of Carrick’s images have been published thanks to the diligent work of his great-grand niece Felicity Ashbee (daughter of artists CR and Janet Ashbee), it is sometimes difficult to attribute his work due to many imitators. His negative numbers in the types are often a start at attribution as are his studio sets, various props and the style and artistry that runs through his work.

I’ve always thought that Carrick’s work has a directness other typographic photographs lack. He seems to have made true connections to his subjects and did sympathize with the plight of the lower classes in Russia, even to the point of being more progressive than the norm. In 1868, he married a member of St. Petersburg’s radical intelligentsia, Alexandrina Markelova, and only told his family several years later. He maintained ties with the Academy of Arts and his work aligns with that of the realist artists in Russia, like Ilya Repin and Ivan Kramskoi. Carrick’s subjects pose but they also fool around, they laugh, they smile and all look alive.

Illustrations

1. Probable self portrait as Orthodox Priest. This is one of those difficult to prove photos, but the resemblance is uncanny. Loose, about 5 x 7.

2. Detail from a travel album page, CDV size photos.

3. Village street scene. Cabinet card.

4. Boys selling tools, CDV.

5. Imperial Guard, CDV from Types Russes album.

6. The Sultan (probably from the Caucuses), CDV from Types Russes album.

7. Portrait of a girl with sample album, CDV.

8. Babushka selling apples to a child, unmounted CDV.

9. Religious peasant, unmounted CDV.

10. Houseboat ?, Cabinet card.

1. Julie Lawson, "William Carrick: His Photography," in Felicity Ashbee and Julie Lawson, William Carrick 1827-1878 (Trustees of the National Gallery of Scotland, 1987), p. 11.

2. Felicity Ashbee, "William Carrick: A Scots Photographer in St. Petersburg (1827-1878)," History of Photography, July 1978, p. 211.

You can see some of Erin's photos for sale here www.finedags.com, and on eBay as Fotographiya.

For more information on Erin Waters, click here.

CONDITION SCHMONDITION, PART I by PAT STREET

2010-10-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

To some collectors, the three most important words guiding the value of vintage and antique photographs are “condition, condition, condition.” For me, though, poor condition is often irrelevant -- and in some cases, even desirable.

Condition issues can take many forms. Writing/labeling on the image; dirt and fingerprints; tears, folds, and creases; foxing; silvering; insect damage; trimming; staining; scuffs, scratches, and other wear; tack holes; deliberate defacement; fading.

Sometimes poor condition matters little, as when the content of the photograph is so wonderful that I would buy it no matter how damaged it were. But here are a few examples of images that I think are enhanced and/or made more evocative by their poor condition. These were very inexpensive and are among my favorites.

1. How much was this dog loved? Judging by the condition of this CDV, he was very precious to someone. Solo CDVs of pets are hard to find and are usually in pretty good condition, having been kept in a family album for many years. You can tell by the grime and wear on this one, and by the five (!) tack holes at the top, that it was handled a great deal and also displayed on the wall, indeed several different walls, over time.

2. Covered now with lines and creases – this real-photo postcard (RPPC) is more than a hundred years old, and it shows its age. Damaged, it’s far more poignant to me than if it were in mint condition. I wonder which child’s family handed the postcard down -- and why the last relative to own it let it go.

3. Without the inscription, this tiny snapshot would still be a desirable image of a crudely constructed cabin, with many interesting details – the slanted board leading up to the porch, the rain barrel, the ladder, the fenced area, the roof vent, and the pensive woman. I would have bought it anyway – I think it cost a dime. But it’s the writing on it that makes it heartbreaking.

4. Here’s a real-photo postcard with writing on it. Without the numbering, it would be a typical school class photo, neither well composed nor expertly exposed. But with the numbering, to someone it was clearly not a class, it was 25 individuals, each with a name, a story, and a personality. The names are not provided on the back, so at one time there must have been a separate key.

5. I like the composition of this little snapshot and the impressionistic images of the children on the beach. But what makes it extra special is the four little digits floating up in the margin. Again, there is no identifying key, but to someone, these four kids are important and the other people in the image are not.

6. Here’s one I would have bought without the inscription (love her laughing face!), but it’s so much more evocative when we know a little bit about the woman.

7. Look at the big greasy fingerprints on this one. Some working man, or maybe a soldier, must have loved one of these women (or the little girl) very much. The image is also oddly trimmed, perhaps to fit in a frame.

8. These rustic guys with heavy coats and a gun were already scary, and then someone had an accident with red ink and enhanced the threatening effect. Blue ink wouldn’t have been nearly as lurid.

9. These are members of my family at the beach in 1937. Someone with a ballpoint pen must have been very, very mad at LuLu. I had always heard that her strictness was infuriating; enlightening to see it was really true.

10. This is a “badly” foxed cabinet photograph. I’ve never seen damage form such a beautiful pattern. It looks like an intricate motif for cloth or wallpaper, and in this image, it decorates the wall, the girl, her clothing, the chair, and the floor. Have any of you seen such a thing before?

11. I wouldn’t have given this image a second look if not for the wonderfully crude paste-up job. Someone who had apparently run out of glue used Dennison labels to affix it to an album page. A newspaper article was stuck to the back of it. It all makes a great composition.

12. Here’s another detail from an album page. This one was created by a child who decorated with a border of crayoned kisses only certain photographs of people she loved. These dog twins were thus honored.

Coming soon: Condition Schmondition, Part II

For more information on Pat Street, click here.

HOUSE OF MIRTH 2011 CALENDAR & NOTE CARDS NOW AVAILABLE.

2010-10-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

In a shameless piece of self promotion, I share the 2011 House of Mirth Calendar and companion note cards, now available for sale on my website www.houseofmirthphotos.com. This is the 6th year in a row that I've printed the calendar, and the first that I've printed note cards. Bring on the holidays!

A MUST ARTICLE FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN COLLECTING SNAPSHOTS

2010-09-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

John Foster aka Accidental Mysteries, makes all of us snapshot buffs proud

BEFORE & AFTER - A PHOTO ROOM ORGANIZED

2010-09-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

I have a spare room where I keep my photos that are for sale, and it was a bit of an unorganized mess. My friend Robert E. Jackson volunteered his services to come organize my room, and below you will find before and after photos and an after video. It's been about a month now, and it is still organized.

Before:

After:

"PAGEANTS OF MASCULINITY": REAL PHOTO POSTCARDS OF MEN POSING TOGETHER by Bob Young

2010-08-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

When Stacy asked me to contribute an entry for her blog, I knew I wanted to write something about my collection of vernacular photos of men - in particular, images that American Studies professor John Ibson has categorized as "pageants of masculinity," in his ground-breaking book, Photographing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday Photography (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002).

The "pageant" phenomena had its heyday during the 1890s through the early 1900s. This type of image usually features two or more American men posing together in deliberate displays that either emphasize traditional "masculine" behavior, or playfully defy it (such as, posing in drag). Masculine-oriented subjects include men drinking, smoking, and gambling (sometimes all three together). Posing with firearms and pretending to fight or box were also common themes, as was dressing-up in cowboy or Indian attire.

There are probably any number of reasons why photos like this were so popular at the time. Camaraderie and a sense of shared fun are often obviously evident, as is an emphasis on shared masculine pursuits, that were distinct from the sphere of women. Dressing up as the romanticized figure of the cowboy might have signified a subconscious wish to escape the confines of modern life, while dressing as a woman may have been a way of, if only humorously in a photo, to briefly escape the confines of gender conformity.

The “pageant” examples I’ve provided for this entry are all real photo postcards from my collection, and date from the first and second decades of the 20th Century. While “pageant” photos are found in other formats, most notably cabinet cards, I am a huge fan of the real photo postcard, and my men photos collection is primarily made up of this type of image.

What I love about these photos, is that the men pictured, are putting on a type of visual performance that continues to resonate and communicate something to us about the men and era in which they were taken.

To see more vintage men photos from Bob's collection on Flickr, click here

Click here for information on Bob Young

EARLY KODACHROME PHOTOS

2010-07-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I read this article in the Denver Post, Captured: America in Color 1939 - 1943, which show wonderful color photos taken during the Great Depression of rural America. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color. Click here to read.

I thought I would share a few Kodachrome snapshots from my little collection. I have a special place in my heart for pre-1960 snaps without the white border.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ESTELLE ROSEN - LEARNING HOW TO LOOK AT SNAPSHOTS

2010-07-13T15:52:00.000-07:00

House of Mirth Photos has obtained an exclusive interview with Estelle Rosen, a photo dealer who has been a constant presence on the East Coast snapshot scene for upwards of twenty years and whose eye has had a great deal to do with defining the field.

Estelle, by all accounts you were among the first to recognize snapshots—for that you should get a lot of credit. I imagine you weren’t following anyone. What made you notice the first snapshot?

When I discovered photo albums in flea markets, I was fascinated by the beautiful light, the mood, the composition and design of the pictures.

I’d spent four years in art school and I had a trained eye. I’m an artist, but I don’t think you need formal art training to see. I think your eye gets more sensitive the more you look. With some guidance your eye will develop over time. We’re all creative in our own special ways, and snapshots are a wonderful catalyst for the expression of creativity.

“The expression of creativity.” That sounds important. Maybe you can enlarge on it later on. Did you buy snapshots just for yourself at first, or did you try to sell them right away?

It was just for myself at first. I shared them with a friend who became a constant customer and encouraged me to keep buying! Selling snapshots has always come naturally to me. I always felt I was selling my “vision.” I felt I had something to say.

But my customers have guided me to some extent in what to buy. Collecting snapshots is very personal. People do it for different reasons.

Can you tell us a little more about the different kinds of collectors you’ve run into?

I am fascinated by what some people buy. I know a poet who wants images that will inspire him. He looks for sensitive images with a soft light. They usually have a rural theme to them. I can feel a poem emerging from some of the photos he chooses. Another customer told me, “I need to be touched by the image.” She’s looking for a personal reference.

What’s it all about for you?

For me it’s all about art—by which I don’t mean anything deliberate on the part of the people who took the pictures, as a rule. I’m bringing an artful interpretation to them, if I can put it that way.

I sell my vision, and I collect my vision—although to me it’s more like just my favorites in a box! But visions can differ.

We can’t know if the people who took the pictures saw what we see. It’s there if you can see it. And not all snapshots have it.

When you talk about art, what do you mean?

I mean a “look”—composition, lighting, formal things. The way I think of it, there are universal standards that anyone with an eye can spot. But each of us uses the standards to construct an aesthetic, which is personal. As I say, visions can differ.

When a snapshot has the things we look for, it has them accidentally. That leaves room for us, for our own creative eye.

Without that creative eye, snapshots would just be family photos.

Estelle, maybe you can help us by explaining what you see in a few examples. What would you say to someone to get them to appreciate what’s good about these? Here’s the first.

The first thing I look for is the abstract design of a photo. Here the light and dark areas play off each other to define the image as a whole. It’s a rigorous, “mathematical” design. The subject is beside the point here. The composition, light, and forms say it all.

Double exposures relate to surrealism—they suggest a wider art context. This one could easily be made into a painting.

These two images came together accidentally. But part of appreciating snapshots is that we welcome accident. And of course the surrealists did too.

The dark forms in the front create an interesting spatial relationship with the background: the foreground is flat, but that highlights the receding perspective of the top image. You have an illusion of depth that the top image alone would not have had.

What I like here is the way the image is framed by the dark form that surrounds it. The contrast between the dark enclosure and its opening brings out the nice horizontal design of the landscape. On the mundane level, of course, it’s just a view out a window.

Here the white form of the refrigerator sets off the dark space surrounding it. And the foreground came out in soft focus—so that the tinted fruit seems to have a soft texture, which is a perfect balance to the simple, flat, untinted forms in back. So you have contrasts in two directions—center against the sides, and back against the front.

This one has mystery—an atmosphere and an implied story. That car isn’t going anywhere! The placement of the car is perfect. It makes for a wonderful composition.

The fence has a gentle flow and there’s a slight movement in the trees at the top. The fence is an interesting distraction from the bland hill. Movement, texture, and space come together to create a lovely, simple composition.  

This is a powerful abstract statement, going far beyond the subject matter. The empty space becomes a form of its own, supported by the dark shapes.

As a dealer of very long standing, someone who’s been watching the ups and downs of the field from the beginning, you have a unique perspective on the snapshot scene. What do you think we can do to help more people appreciate snapshots?

We need to be bringing more aesthetics to what we do, and we need better language to talk about what’s in these pictures.

The real challenge is to own your creative eye, as snapshots allow you to do—to understand what pleases you and why, to develop your own personal aesthetic.

Thank you for talking with us, Estelle!

You’re welcome.

Estelle sets up at various shows on the east coast.

You can see Estelle's art work at estellerosen.com

IS THE BABY IN THIS SNAPSHOT ALIVE OR DEAD?

2010-06-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

A fixed gaze, but bent knees and where are the arms? Is this baby alive or dead? By a doorstep in the grass. Something is not right. Here it is posted on eBay

THE GORESBRIDGE ALBUM: A SNAPSHOT OF IRISH-AMERICA by Orla Fitzpatrick

2010-06-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

Some of the photographs in this Irish-American album have crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice! Firstly, when they were sent to emigrants in the early twentieth century and secondly when I purchased the album from an online seller in 2009 and repatriated them.

It was probably compiled by a female member of the Byrne or Nolan family from Goresbridge, County Kilkenny who had emigrated to the United States. Pages alternate between Irish and American locations. Its narrative is an attempt to unify a family who were geographically separated by emigration.

The creator has carefully placed and sequenced the photographs on the pages. None are captioned and only a few have information on the back. I love the movement and atmosphere of the snapshot which depicts a boat trip: the action of the young boy leaping onto the boat; the ladies in white dresses standing on the river bank and the hazy sky. The reverse reads ‘Uncle with fiddle, Dad with bottle of stout.’ Memories of a happy day in the Irish countryside!

The original Byrne and Nolan families were part of the Catholic Middle class. They ran businesses as evidenced by the photograph of the bakery and took jobs in the newly emerging independent state, for example, the prison warden standing in front of the gaol.

Interspaced between the original photographs are images cut from magazines, chromolithographic scraps and an occasional poem. There are a wide variety of photographic formats including snapshots, tintypes, studio portraits and photo booth pictures. The tintype was not popular in Ireland and the one in this album may originate from an earlier generation of emigrants to the United States. The gold-painted watch fob is a nice touch.

It is immediately obvious which of the pages originate in the United States as the clothes, the light and the building types are very different to those in Ireland. Wooden houses, porches and saloon bars contrast with the stone buildings, public houses and small towns in the Irish pages. The photograph of the children with the wooden guns is definitely taken in America – the brickwork and the clothes are unlike anything found in Ireland.

I particularly like the series of images taken in the 1930s showing an older generation of the family seated in their living room. The floral dresses and the piano, which is adorned with photographs, speak of a respectable emigrant family.

This album appears to demonstrate the transition and absorption of a family into America. One
wonders how it came to leave the family? What happened to subsequent generations? Did the dream turn sour? The places mentioned in the album such as Ely Avenue, New York and St. Joachim’s Church on the South Side of Chicago invoke an Irish-American culture and community that persisted for many decades. The album encapsulates all that I love about vernacular photography: captivating images which provide a glimpse into a long- gone family’s aspirations and concerns.

Orla Fitzpatrick's Blog

Click here for more information on Orla Fitzpatrick

A CONVERSATION WITH BESS by Jane Waggoner Deschner

2010-06-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

ANY IDIOT CAN FACE A CRISIS, IT IS THE DAY-TO-DAY LIVING THAT WEARS YOU OUT....ANTON CHEKHOV

Me: Excuse me, ma’am. May I talk with you?

Her: Who are you?

M: I'm the artist who found this photograph of you. I rescued it, actually. Then I used it to make an artwork.

H: Me, an artwork? How do you make art out of my old photo?

M: First, I find it. Then I look at it and decide what I might be able to "say" using this--er, your--image. One of the things I do in my practice is embroider sayings of famous people into studio portraits made by unknown photographers.

H: You've changed me. You have pierced my image. You've taken me away from those who know me.

M: Yes, I have. Tell me about the day you had this photo taken.

H: I'll tell you about that if you tell me what you think you are doing.

M: Okay.

H: My name is Bess. I had this photo taken as a present for my husband Herb's birthday. I went to the photographer and told him that I wanted a picture of myself for my husband's desk at the bank. I think he (my husband, not the photographer) eyes the young women too much--I wanted to remind him of his "other responsibilities."

The pearls I'm wearing were a 10th anniversary present from Herb. He gave me the earrings when we got married. You can't tell from the photo but the dress is shades of periwinkle blue and white--the blue matches my eyes. He always used to say that he loved my clear blue eyes. When I was young, I used to have the creamiest white skin.

The day I went to the studio, I was nervous to pose in front of the camera. I'm not usually one who takes center stage, but I had something to say to Herb and a photo seemed the best way to do it. The photographer assured me that he would take a series of photos and I could pick from the proofs the one liked best.

M: How did you decide on this particular photo?

Bess: I liked the way the light was on one side of my face and the other side of my hair. I'm looking up, just barely, but I appear to be thinking. I didn't like the proofs in which I was grinning. I'm not a silly person and I don't want to look like one. I'm not beautiful anymore, so I wanted to look like I had character.

So now you tell me why you chose this picture and stitched words through it.

M: I work with vernacular photographs; pictures taken by unknown photographers. I'm interested in uncovering/discovering commonalities of our shared humanity. (I hope I don't sound too pretentious.) It seems that we humans look more easily for differences among us--the things that separate us--than we do for the things that bring us together. There is the common and very widespread human tendency to want one's picture taken and to take pictures of people, places and times we want to remember. We want some evidence of our existence. By accumulating and sifting through these, I find ways of photographing (as shown in kinds of photographs) that many individuals in a variety of times and places have done. I hope, that by presenting these in interesting, creative ways, viewers will look at the photos of themselves and other un-famous people with a new interest--as part of a larger whole, a bigger family. Does that make sense to you?

B: Yes, I think so. I'm not that different from my friends. I guess there are women like me in other small towns in other places. They probably don't want their husbands eyeing younger women either.

M: Probably not. But I don't think they would understand, from looking at this photo of you, that that is why you had it taken. But as Susan Sontag wrote, "Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy." There is purpose, a personality, in your gaze. Your clothes, jewelry and hair say something about you, about your "position" in life. But in these kinds of studio images, there isn't the milieu, the spontaneity, that snapshots have, which offers the viewer clues about the impetus for the photo to have been snapped. You have chosen this photo of yourself because it presents you very well--you look better than you do on an average day--it's calculated and posed. And so, less interesting for people who don't know you and can't compare the photograph to the "real thing."

It's these kinds of photos that I add words from the famous to. In your case, I used a Chekhov quote: "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is the day-to-day living that wears you out." I want my art to say something--I want to say something through my art. If I am going to spend my time creating/working on something, I want it to provoke viewer's thoughts about life and living in some way. Famous people often say things more articulately than I can. Plus a famous name gives the statement more credibility. People will pay more attention to what Dwight Eisenhower or John McCain have to say about war than Jane Deschner, even though I might use the same words. Their quotes and your picture, you, give the art object a spectrum from famous to common. Am I making sense?

B: You use my photo as a symbol for women, even people, like me.

M: Bingo.

B: How do you choose the quotes?

M: I turned 60 this year. I've also lived longer than my mother and been healthy longer than my father. My younger sister is dying. I feel an urgency in living. I can share things in quotes I find that I believe and feel. Within this maxim series, I've developed "mini-series" I guess you have to call them. One mini-series used quotes that all related to "war and peace." Another about "love." I want to do another one with the words coming from children. Many of them, like this one, share my thoughts about aspects of living in general.

B: It seems like a lot of work to stitch the quote into the photograph.

M: It is. But, it's work that I enjoy. I love what I can do with my computer, but at the end of the day, what centers me is working directly with my hands. It's not the same as through a keyboard. Also, I believe that for all the immediacy of a photograph (the almost instantaneous recording of the light emanating from a subject at an instant in time [±Barthes]), there is a distance inherent in it as an art medium--no hands manipulating clay, paint or pencil. By hand-embroidering, I am inserting my hand--me--directly and obviously into the art making process. You can see my touch in the final artwork. Needle-in-hand is an age-old women's craft, as well. I feel comfortable joining those generations of craftswomen.

B: I like to crochet so I know what you mean. Earlier I said that you have taken "me" away from people who know me. Do I belong in an art gallery?

M: That's another part of this process. Remember, I'm pointing out commonalities in humanity. Putting this embroidered photograph into a gallery raises its value, broadens its scope. It's in a frame; it's on the wall; it's signed by an artist; it's an artwork. People now regard it differently--I hope in all the ways I've shared with you above.

So, what do you think now about what I've done with this photo of you?

B: You have done a beautiful job of embroidering. I think you have chosen a beautiful script to use and rich colors of thread. They go with the ambient coloration of my photo. I'm not sure about the hanging threads, but they must be there to "loosen it up." I like that I'm representing a part of humanity. I believe we should be kind to one another. Do you think people can see that? I'm happy that this photo is not lost--it means I'm not forgotten. You don't have to know that I'm "Bess from small town USA" to feel something about me--well, actually about all whom I'm representing. I think I'm understanding this art thing! I'm glad that we're working together.

M: Did Herb stop eyeing the younger women at the bank after he received his birthday present?

B: No, I really didn't think he would. We've been together a long time; I know he loves me. He just likes to look and fantasize. Don't we all?

M: I certainly do. That's why I love these photographs.

B: The one thing I'm not so sure about though. How would Chekhov feel about being associated with the likes of us?

The photo is from the maxim series (Chekhov, pearls), 2008, found studio portrait and DMC Mouliné 100% cotton thread, 9 7/8"h x 8"w.

The piece is in the collection of Sharon Dynak at Ucross Foundation in Wyoming.

www.janedeschner.com

Click here for more on Jane Waggoner Deschner and other Guest Contributors

VERNACULAR BESTIARY by John Nichols

2010-06-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

“And the lion shall lie down with the lamb…” we've been told. It happens every day to any photography dealer who is also a collector. The dealer buys lots and lots of photographs and tries to find a good home for them. That's the lamb part. Then the collector inside the dealer growls like a hungry lion and says, "I want that". How can a dealer also be a collector and not be directly competing with his or her clients for the good material?

One way would be for the dealer to collect something useless, insignificant and poetic. How about snapshots within a very narrow category that don't have a high monetary value, are common and yet endlessly fascinating. That's the story behind the Vernacular Bestiary. 

It didn't take me very long to notice that one of the rooms in our house had been gradually decorated mostly in animals in some form or another. There was a lot of band saw art and some pull toys and scientific prints and documentary photography and snapshots all resting on bookshelves and filling the walls above them. I began to contemplate the concept of a bestiary.  

During my time as a new and used book dealer I noticed there were a lot of books with animals in them. People do love their animals and buy books about them. Books on cats and dogs and horses are common. Bird books are useful to have around. Some books contained antique photos or reproductions of various animals. What I did not see was a book of photographs of animals made up of only snapshots. The wheels in my mind began slowly turning. After some grinding of wheels I made the first step into a minor compulsion. I registered the domain name www.vernacularbestiary.com. Don't bother looking, it's inactive. I only have so much time for my compulsions. It's parked while I'm out gathering more photographs for the Vernacular Bestiary.  

A bestiary is not a zoo or a farm or an actual place. Everything in a this bestiary must be a trace of an original animal (both imaginary and real). Tracing with light produces a photograph. Tracing the image of an animal with light would be a photograph of an animal. If that photograph was taken without artistic intent, by a member of the class of humans called "The People", with primitive equipment and processed by simple means like a drugstore or home sink, then that photograph could be considered to be Vernacular. No professionals need apply. 

The filing system of the VB has slowly evolved. I use 3-ring binders for storage. I cut a piece of acid-free mat board to 8 1/2 by 11 inch size but a little less to allow for easy insertion into clear plastic, heavy duty Top Loaders from the office supply store. Now I've got a sort of envelope to store the constantly growing VB. It seemed logical to start placing the animals in alphabetical order. If I got a few more bears, for instance, I could easily add a new top loader to the binder and mark that section bears.   Looking at the VB in its entirety made patterns visible. I began to try to get one animal for each letter of the alphabet. I would call that an Alphabetary. Within the VB is an Alphabetary. The VB is what it is but the Alphabetary is currently incomplete. Egret, flamingo, gerbil, hedgehog lead to lacuna at the letter I. I still need a snapshot of an ibex, iguana, impala or any other animal starting with I. The rest of the missing letters are N, U, V, X and Y. Z is obviously covered by our striped friend Mr. Zebra. 

There were also several particular animals I found difficult to collect. Vicious, nocturnal animals topped my list. Fellow collectors and dealers came to the rescue. Robert Jackson brought me a huge bat, a running boar and a porcupine. From Erin Waters came a double exposure of a buck.

I made up business cards on the computer and hand them out. They say, "Do You Support The Vernacular Bestiary?"   I've posted some of the VB on my Facebook page and on Flickr. My constantly under construction web site is www.johnnicholsgallery.com. Wonder what will happen next? 

Phone: 805-525-7804
Business Email: john@sespe.com
http://www.johnnicholsgallery.com
(Mail: POB 268)
Santa Paula, CA 93061
Facebook: http://profile.to/johnnichols/
Blog: http://sespe.wordpress.com/
Snapshots: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrnichols/

Click here for more information on John Nichols

See John interviewed below:

SNAPSHOTS OF FACES by Robert E. Jackson

2010-05-31T00:36:00.000-07:00

Snapshots of faces are seductive as well timeless and universal in what they impart to the viewer. And if you don’t know the person, you are not associating some flaw in their physical or emotional makeup with seeing their likeness in a photo. You are not remembering some insult, or thinking about a bad time you had with the person. Such distance enables you to simply gaze into the person’s eyes, marvel at the attractiveness of a gentleman’s features, or swoon at a woman’s beauty.

And these are not portraits as taken by a professional photographer, but rather photos clicked by friends and family. Therefore there is often an ease and naturalness in the photo subject that you don’t see in regular portrait photography. And there is often little care taken in lighting effects and such. This is because the photographer knows the person whose photo they are shooting and isn’t generally concerned about the technical aspects of getting the portrait perfect. The photo’s general purpose is mainly to record a funny or poignant event within the fabric of a friendship or to establish a kinship with the individual being photographed. It is often a moment when the subject and photographer are engaged in some flirtation or bittersweet sadness related to an impending separation, and as such these images have a strange power to elicit a memory of love, of infatuation, of loss.

For us, they evoke something even deeper: a feeling of shared humanity, a sense that we “know” these people. The impersonal gaze at the beauty of a face is an enduring fascination.

Click here for more on Robert E. Jackson and other Guest Contributors

HOW MUCH WILL THIS PHOTO SELL FOR ON EBAY?

2010-05-17T17:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight I am listing this photo on eBay, a vintage snapshot of two women kissing. http://tinyurl.com/2fmsktkThe category of affectionate women can see wild swings, with prices from just a few bucks to several hundred dollars. The person who comes closest to the actual selling price will win a $20 gift certificate to my website http://www.houseofmirthphotos.com. The bidding starts at $49.99 and ends on Monday, May 24th. Step on up and take a guess here, on my link on Facebook or send me a message on Twitter.......Oh! Guesses must be in by 10 am est on Sunday the 23rd. Thanks!

BRIMFIELD WEEK - SUN, WIND, RAIN AND PHOTOS

2010-05-15T12:27:00.000-07:00

This week was the first Brimfield show of the 2010 season. For those of you that don't know, it is a large antique show that runs for about week, with different fields with (supposedly) different dealers opening each day. People come from all over the world, and this year was no different, as many different languages were heard including Japanese, French and Italian. This was by far, the most crowded I have ever seen Brimfield. There seemed to be more and new dealers in all the fields and many more shoppers. If you didn't arrive early, you would have to park quite a distance away from the action of the day. Of course, many of the usual suspects were there buying and selling photos, including the Waters Clan, Mr. Waterslide, Glenn Vogel and many, many more. Don't forget, you can't go to Brimfield, without sampling some of the excellent food. A must is the Pilgrim Sandwich!!
A few scenes from this show include: