Portraits from the first 100 years of photography
This carte-de-visite isn't the first wedding photograph on the blog, but it's the first portrait of a bride and groom without attendants. For some reason I've been slow to appreciate wedding portraits as a genre, so I haven't bought many over the years. I found this one in January while doing research for an earlier... Continue Reading →
This small snapshot came from England, but with no information about who's in it or where it was taken. Notice the can of Shell gas on the running board below. These gals were prepared. The camper (called a caravan in the UK) is a Car Cruiser model from the 1920s. You can see a... Continue Reading →
These ladies look like they had fun together. They have a cute car, too. The snapshot was for sale in Pennsylvania, but could have been taken anywhere.
March is Women's History Month in the United States, and I've been thinking about which photographs might best fit the theme. Any consideration of Women's History has to encompass a wide variety of fields, including domestic and family life, education, work outside the home, intellectual and creative achievement, and the social reform movements. All of... Continue Reading →
When I start researching a foreign photographer, I never expect to find much. I can usually find a few references online, and sometimes studio addresses or dates of operation, but that's generally it. On the other hand, some studios are well documented in their own countries, and the E. Bieber studio in Hamburg is one... Continue Reading →
A note on the back of this studio portrait says either "Harold Winnie" or "Harold & Winnie." While Winnie could be a last name, it's more likely the first name of the girl on the left, who must be Harold's sister. The studio is identified on the mat just below the image: Gordon & Blees. ... Continue Reading →
We can see from this scene that parents have overreacted to teenage behavior since at least the 1850s. A girl and a boy lounge in the grass. A basket of wildflowers lies at the girl's feet. The boy innocently offers her a small bouquet. Meanwhile, the girl's father discovers them and charges through the bushes... Continue Reading →
If you've been following this blog for a while, you may remember a post from last October titled School dog and her charges (UK). I had bought that CDV because the group portrait included a dog posing charmingly with students. Then, after scanning it, I had noticed that one of the girls was of mixed-race... Continue Reading →
Here's another occupational carte-de-visite from England. It looks like an early one, maybe early 1870s. At the mouth of the River Tyne on the North Sea, South Shields was a major shipbuilding center from the 1850s onward. The photo was taken in an industrial setting, possibly a shipyard, by a photographer from the studio of... Continue Reading →
This carte-de-visite may have been made at High Brooms Brick and Tile Company, founded in 1885 in Southborough, Kent, England. It's hard to tell what the father is sitting on, but we can see he's wearing gaiters of some sort below the knees, probably to keep his legs dry or clean. The photographer is identified on... Continue Reading →
Bostonia doesn't seem to exist anymore, if it ever really did. A stamp on the mat says "Halliday's Studio, Bostonia, ND." There was a post office on a farm there from 1908 to 1913, and Halliday's studio was probably also in a home, although the closest Halliday families I found in Census records were several... Continue Reading →
It was relatively rare for women in Britain and North America to set up their own commercial studios in the nineteenth century. In Scandinavia, in contrast, women seem to have embraced the business of photography from the earliest days and to have enjoyed commercial success on a par with their male counterparts. This topic has... Continue Reading →
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