LILACS by Sabine Ocker

Lilacs,

False blue,
White,
Purple,
Color of lilac.
Heart-leaves of lilac all over New England,
Roots of lilac under all the soil of New England,
Lilac in me because I am New England

Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

A late spring offering of a small part of my flower image collection featuring photographs of the lilac, one of my all time favorites. I can never get enough of that heady perfume, bringing good tidings of warmer weather and sunny days ahead.
Happy Memorial Day!

Sabine Ocker

For more info on Sabine, click here.

THREE QUESTIONS by Joel Rotenberg

 

1. Mark Glovsky pointed out to me that nudity is oddly rare in photobooth portraits, and he is absolutely right. This is the only example I have. I think it’s pretty recent, so maybe it doesn’t even count.

Where is all the photobooth nudity? By rights it should be common. People had every reason to believe they would be the only ones who ever saw what they did in the booths; in this respect photobooths are like Polaroids, which aren’t processed by a lab and—for that very reason, I’ve always thought—are full of sex and nudity. And if you were a certain kind of person, wouldn’t you take the curtained-off booth as a dare?

2. Shadow images like this one occasionally turn up. They are created by decades of close contact between a photo and a piece of paper or cardboard, as in the case of this cabinet card. In very specific chemical terms, what is going on here?

3. When you took photos to the drugstore to be made into Christmas cards, birth announcements, etc., I assume you were shown samples, so that you could say, “I want this format.” What did these samples look like? Was there some sort of sample book, perhaps? Was it standard, distributed from a central point—possibly the lab that did the processing?



Joel Rotenberg
The Art of the Snapshot

A FAVORITE TINTYPE

For this group blog post, I asked a few collectors to share a favorite tintype.  The images below are powerful and thought provoking.  As you will note, a tintype doesn't have to be in perfect condition in order to be loved.  Please let me and the collectors know what you think.  Next month:  A favorite real photo postcard.  Have one you want to share?  Drop me a line.  Stacy Waldman

A group of roofers pause in their work taken from a higher roof nearby (that two of the guys wear stovepipe hats, I find quite humorous). It's hard to make out but stamped into the metal along the top edge is this imprint: "MELAINOTYPE PLATE FOR NEFF'S PAT 19 FEB 56," which dates the tintype from c. 1857.  Very early for an outdoor tintype, or any tintype for that matter. I love the framing of the image, the depth of field, the subtle tinting of brick and trees, and especially the seeming formality of the workers. They crouch and stand in place, still clutching the tools of their trade, as if this is only a temporary interruption to the work at hand. I don't even mind the weird pock marks that mar the image and that date back to when the plate was made, as the marks are under the varnish. They were still learning how to make tintypes, I guess. I'd only been collecting for a year when I bought this image, and I paid way more money than I had yet paid to date for a single image. At lunch that day with a far more experienced collector I expressed buyer's remorse, and she offered to take it off my hands almost as fast as the words were out of my mouth. I laugh when I think about that moment now. No thanks, I think I'll be keeping it.

Phil Storey
Click here for more information on Phil.

Hannibal (Hannie) Emery Hamlin photographing his friends.  Hamlin was from Bangor and went to Colby College. This tin came in an album of images showing him and his buds fooling around in a studio.  Hamlin's identification was written on the flypaper. Hamlin's father was Hannibal Hamlin, President Lincoln's first Vice-President.  Hannie went on to be a lawyer and a politician himself.  I was able to identify the photographer in this image as Hamlin thanks to later images of him I found online. Also, he was the only guy in nearly every tintype.

Erin Waters
Click here for more information on Erin.

Attached are 2 images of my favorite flower tintype. I love the composition of the still life—the simplicity of the wedding bouquet lying on the table, but what elevates this image into my favorite territory is the inadvertent portrait of the fly. The fact that the fly stayed still during the entire exposure humors me, and makes me smile whenever I see it.

Sabine Ocker
Click here for more information on Sabine.

In addition to this tintype's initial shock value, I find it intriguing in it's composition and the subject's posturing and facial expression. Overall, I feel it has a powerful presence.

Jim Matthews

Jim is working on his biography....

When I started collecting antique images of children with pets, I was really surprised by the number of studio photos that included poultry. It would have been relatively easy to take a dog to the photographer's studio, and somewhat less convenient to carry along a pet chicken, duck, goose, or turkey. The birds included in children's portraits must have been truly beloved. This boy's mother has arranged his hair in a typical little forelock. He is wearing jewelry and shiny new boots, and holds his little white hen still for the camera.

Pat Street
Click here for more information on Pat.

I am enamored of arcade images as they deal with fantasy and aspiration in regard to the types of scenes which feature the head of the sitter (or sitters).  The most common arcade tintypes generally involve people on a horse or driving a horse drawn wagon or carriage.  So to find one like this was a real treat.  What is written on the tintype is "O! Come Off the Perch" as sung by the bird on the lower branch. 

Robert E. Jackson
Click here for more information on Robert.

I was gonna go with some other tin, but then, like Barry Bonds, I decided to go with the cream.  Certainly there are other banjo player photos out there, but I haven't seen one I'd trade mine for.  The beard, the stogie, the eyes lost in the river of time---here is the physical manifestation of a musical essence.  Look closely at that hand strumming the strings.  The fingers are doubled----they couldn't stop moving.

This gentleman looks like Emmett Kelly, that most famous of circus clowns.  Like Kelly, he seems to express an almost bottomless sadness.  There's always farther to fall, he seems to be saying.
 
The photo came from an Ebay dealer in Iowa.  Davenport, maybe.  It was somewhere on the river.  1870's, maybe? 1880's?  It couldn't have been all that long since the Civil War.  This is one of those faces that, when you look at it, you almost don't want to know how it got that way.  Just imagine the music this man must have played.

John Van Noate
Click here for more information on John.

I really love the surface on this one. Just think, this was made long before they invented Hipstamatic, Polaroid emulsion lifts and Photoshop.  It has, and will, outlast all of those processes for sure. It certainly will outlast all of you viewing this image. I'm not quite sure if it's a self-portrait or not, maybe a second camera was used.  The sure sight of this gem makes me think of its past.  Who has seen this tintype? How many homes has it had? I do know if it has found its final resting place in mine.

It has weight to it--both physically and metaphorically. Like a single frame taken right out of a 16mm home movie, only the creator knows of its past and the times surrounding it. The present is up to us.  'All of which' reminds me of current artist like Jefferson Hayman and Masao Yamamoto.

Enjoy.

Randall de Rijk
Click here for more information on Randall.

An Illegitimate Portrait Prefiguring Modernism (Collected by J. Moss Evergreen)

“Is everybody in?”
    ~ Jim Morrison

“This is a place of dead roads. Of rot riding yanks and peat men and cat burglars, black bindle stiffs and hobo jungles. Here is Salt Chunk Mary the fence in her red brick house down by the tracks in Portobello, Idaho.”
    ~William S. Burroughs

“Chance encounters are what keep us going.”
    ~Haruki Murakami

“The only credible answer to the question, ‘What is a work of art?’…is ‘Anything that anyone has ever considered a work of art, though it may be a work of art only for that one person’.”
    ~John Carey

“It’s good to be anywhere.”
    ~Keith Richards

"And just then it occurred to him that he was going to die. It came with a rush; not as a rush of water nor of wind; but of a sudden evil-smelling emptiness and the odd thing was that the hyena slipped lightly along the edge of it.”
    ~Ernest Hemingway

“The taste for quotations (and for the juxtaposition of incongruous quotations) is a Surrealist taste.”
   ~Susan Sontag

“A photograph could also be described as a quotation…”
    ~Susan Sontag

[photo caption: half-plate tintype, c.1890.]


J. Moss Evergreen
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WOW! BOY IN A DRESS - Part III by PAT STREET

To recap, the four things to consider when trying to decide the gender of a child in an antique photograph are Hair, Clothes, Props, and Pose.  In previous posts I covered Hair and Clothes; this time we'll take a look at Props and Pose.

 1.  Boys' props.  If the child is shown with any of the following, it's most likely a boy. The choosing of props was influenced by images of children in popular culture -- trade cards, book illustrations, and decorative prints.

 A.  Equestrian toys.  Rocking horse, hobby horse, toy horse, whip, riding crop or quirt.

 B.  Martial toys.  Toy soldiers, cannon, sword, gun, bow and arrows, drum, or bugle.

 C.  Vehicle toys.  Toy horse and wagon, boat, tractor, car, or train; ride-on toys such as Irish Mail, tricycle, wagon. The first photo shows a boy on the left and a girl on the right. The other photos show boys.

 D.  Tools, building toys.  Shovel, hammer, hatchet, saw, pail, or wheelbarrow; blocks or building set. These are boys.

 E.  Sports equipment.  Cricket bat, baseball bat, ball.

 F.  Boy dolls. I have many examples of boys with dolls. Boys often have boy dolls. As with children, if the doll is wearing a dress, it could be a boy doll.  These children are all boys.

  G.  Gentlemanly props.  Cane or walking stick, pocket watch, or for humorous effect, pipe or cigar.

 H.  Rustic props.  The Huck Finn look. Torn straw hat, wheat straw in the mouth, bare feet. These are all boys.

2.  Girls' props.  The child is probably a girl if you see these props, no doubt meant to indicate that she's motherly, domestic, modest, and feminine:

 A.  Women's tools.  Broom, laundry items, cooking items, tea set, knitting or sewing items., chatelaine (with attached scissors, mechanical pencil, pocket knife, keys, thimble, perfume bottle, watch, coin purse, whistle, etc).

 B.  Dolls and doll buggies.  Usually if the child has a doll, especially a fancy doll, and/or a doll carriage or stroller, it's a girl. These are girls.

 C.  Fashion accessories.  Parasol, fan, muff, purse.  Note: small boys sometimes used muffs. The third child is a boy.

 

 D.  Girls' tricycle.  Considered a more modest tricycle for little girls; they could keep their knees together. These are girls.

 E.  Flowers.  Usually seen with a girl, but surprisingly often with a boy. These are all boys.

 3.  Unisex props.  The child could be either a boy or a girl with any of these:

 A.  Toy or fake animals.  After 1902, teddy bears appeared in many photographs with children of both genders.

 B.  Books.  A book in the image would be meant to suggest that a child was literate, cultured, and scholarly, and— if the book is a bible—pious.  The child holding the book, below, is a boy.

 C.  Musical instruments.  If a child played an instrument, he or she might be posed with it.  Even if a child didn't play anything, sometimes the photographer used a musical instrument as a prop to convey a sense of culture and gentility.  The child with recorder or flute is a boy.

D.  Unisex sports or play equipment.  Tennis racket,  hoop and stick, croquet mallet, roller skates, jump rope.  These are both boys.

E.  Pets.  Children's portraits with their pets were popular.  Including the child's pet gave the child something to relate to and suggested family warmth and a happy home life.  Sometimes the photo studio provided animals (live, taxidermied, fake, or toy) to enhance the photograph.

  4.  Pose.  Sometimes the pose is all that will help you. Here are some ways to tell the child's gender if there are no hair, clothes, or prop giveaways.

 A.  Aside or astride?  If a child is posed on an animal seated aside, it's a girl. It wasn't considered ladylike to sit astride, but some girls did. Boys did not sit aside. This is a girl.

B.  Dance pose.  Generally a girl, unless a vaudeville performer, then sometimes a boy, a boy dressed as a girl, or a girl dressed as a boy. The child on the left is a boy; I'm not sure about the pair of dancers -- either a girl and boy or two girls.

C.  Napoleon pose.  If the child has a hand tucked in the front of the dress or jacket, it's a boy.

D.  Unladylike pose, body language.  Little girls were generally posed to look dainty and demure. If the pose is really unladylike or bold, legs spread, hands on hips, hands in pockets, chances are it's a boy. Sometimes you just have to go with body language!

Identifying the gender of a child in a nineteenth-century (or early twentieth-century) photo isn't always easy. I hope this brief survey of customs in hair styles, clothing, props, and pose has been useful to collectors and sellers!

Click here to read Boy in a Dress! Part I
Click here to read Boy in a Dress! Part II

Click here for more info on Pat Street

HAPPY EASTER? By David Rheingold

If you Google “Sketchy Bunnies” you will find a lot of blogs with ironic Easter Bunny photos. There is much humor to be found via adults in bunny costumes unintentionally scaring children. Easter and the Easter Bunny have come a long way to get to this point. Easter started as a pagan (Saxon) springtime holiday celebrating regrowth and fertility. Bunnies and eggs were obvious signs of fertility. Over time, Christian missionaries merged it into the observance of the Resurrection of Christ. German immigrants in Pennsylvania are credited with creating what has now become the Easter tradition of baskets, dyed eggs and chocolate bunnies.

I have been collecting what I call “Sketchy Bunny” photos for a few years. I find it odd how furry, cute bunnies can become unsettling when transformed into a child's costume or into dolls.  Something is lost in translation when they become bipeds with long, perky ears.

When the costume is combined with an odd pose or odd expression, there is a sketchy aspect to it all:

Perhaps the barrenness of outdoors at Easter also adds to the grimness:

And why not throw in Popeye and harsh flash for good measure:

And here is one which has a real creepy vibe, but I can't figure out how it was created. I assume it was an accidental composition. Any thoughts are welcome!

And Halloween seems to be the best way to exploit the creepiness. Perhaps that's where the modern day Sketchy Easter Bunny belongs.

A FAVORITE PHOTOBOOTH PHOTO

What is important about the photobooth is the melding of technology with personal aesthetic.  The paid professional photographer has been eliminated and in his place is this cramped curtained booth with a camera at eye level which allows the subject to take on the role of both observer and subject.  Being both behind the camera and in front of it, so to speak, blurs into one role which allows for the subject (or subjects) within the booth to at times create another persona-to control the visual message about who they are and how they wish to be depicted.  But the subject’s eye is often revealed as a studied knowing eye which in fact winks at the potential viewer of the photo as if to say what is revealed is all a joke- thereby functioning as a hall of mirrors which can deflect the true soul of the subject or subjects captured on film.  Thus the camera is used as a device to not only record identity but to create and manipulate it.  

But then another layer “outside the booth” is placed onto the original photo--that of the collector who now owns the photo.  Below are a few collectors'  favorite photobooths which inhabit a digital world years away from that photobooth strip (and they nearly always were created  in a four photo per strip format) which was eagerly clutched in someone’s hand, passed around to gales of laughter, or cut up and put in a wallet as a remembrance of a happy time, a fun vacation or perhaps an emerging crush with the person sharing the booth.

Robert E. Jackson

In no particular order:

One of my favorites.

Nicholas Osborn
For more on Nick, click here. 

A black cat named Lucky in a photobooth.  Need I say more? I love the allure and mystery behind the black cat. I also love that it was  perfectly hand colored back in the day.  I just got this photobooth and it's easily become my favorite.

Albert Tanquero
For more on Albert, click here. 

This photo is one of seven in this larger size. I also have 40 more regular-sized photobooth images of the woman and her family. There is a photomatic of her as well.  I love their eyes in this shot, not to mention the wonderful painted background.

Erin Waters
For more on Erin, click here. 

Double-exposure photobooth photos I think are really rare.  This photo is magical to me and is one of my top favorites.

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

This one just reads well.  It has that bright enthusiasm one gets when even just thinking of going into a photobooth. 



Take this simple exercise with me:

1)Close your eyes right now just for a moment and imagine your going into a one. (No, really just do it).

2) Pull the curtain back and look inside, empty right? Take a look at the seat, and now turn around and look at the mirror ( You're smiling right now aren't you?).

3) Sit down, take a seat and look at yourself.  (Are you getting that tickling stomach yet? You feel it?)

4) Okay, drop your coins in and look at yourself again. (No, that's a stupid smile try something else)
.

5) Now hit the button....................................wait, wait.... (Come on, when is this thing going to...)--

6) FLASH! (Don't worry you have a few more to get it right)

.

We still have photobooths today even when  so many cameras can also make phone calls and I believe it is not the nostalgic factor at all, it’s just a magical state of mind-- even one which is childlike, where anything can happen. One is empowered just to forget who they are and to be anyone they want to be for a few minutes.  

Think about it.  Our love for these booths has not diminished at all.



Randall de Rijk
For more on Randall, click here

This one is nothing flashy, but I have always loved it.  I love her expression, which is almost a glare and I love the pin holding her shirt closed.  My favorite photobooth.  Hope you like it.

Clare Goldsmith
For more on Clare, click here. 

This Popeye is a combination of two genres--the carnival image and the photobooth. I am always surprised to look through my collection and realize I have more of a particular type of image than I think I do. That's why I love it when asked to select a photo according to a theme,  as it makes me think anew about that theme as it relates to the images in my collection.

Sabine Ocker
For more on Sabine, click here. 

In a photobooth there was no one behind the camera. The occupant inside was in control of the outcome of the photograph. Sort of. Accidents in photobooths were common, as common as the magical mishaps that happened when there was someone behind the camera.

People, in a small private space where they can be themselves, in front of a camera, with no one behind the camera. An automated mechanical process. The film is exposed and a narrative is created.

Was the man in the process of sitting next to the woman? Was he whispering? Trying to make her laugh? Or smile?

We'll never know. We don't need to.

Billy Parrott
For more on Billy, click here.

This triple image strip is from a business that has a photobooth for photo ID’s.  I like it because it is uncut and also because of the moody shadows.

Richie Hart
For more on Richie, click here.

Obviously, the star of this photobooth image is the lack of detail in the face. Since the photobooth was designed to take your portrait, this was a photobooth failure. Photographic failures can be wonderfully poetic.

John Foster
For more on John, click here.

I love this young woman, sight seen.  I love her youthful exuberance, her girlishness on the cusp of womanhood, her innocence, her joie de vivre.  It always seems so common, so ordinary, so much the expected, to wish for another person - someone long gone, someone forever unknown, some anonymous being - the happiness and fulfillment that, at bottom, one wishes above all for one's self.  Still, when I look at her, trying on versions of herself, I can't help hoping that she had a Long and Happy Life, and many returns to the photobooth, trying on new faces for the next exciting chapter in her never-ending saga.

John Van Noate

For more on John, click here.

See how young they are? See the way their faces touch, their bemused smiles sublimely curled. They are at an amusement park by a lake and it’s night and the colored lights on the Ferris Wheel just flickered on and off and on again as they walk toward the arcade. Outside the air is growing cooler and, though it’s late September, winter feels imminent. Looming. She is nervous and excited and despite the chilling air, her hand sweats slightly holding his in the photobooth. And she has a secret; a tiny secret like the distant scent of something cooking in another room. She wants to tell him but thinks it best to wait. They are so young and there is yet so much time.

Guy Capecelatro III

Some Women - A photobooth book

For more on Guy, click here.