Who Were They?

Blur on the edges

Mrs Marvel

January 25, 2013

You can’t see me!

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt has a wealth of directions in which to travel. I could have showed you a storefront, or people on a stoop, or even an old business, but since I already used all of those for previous posts I needed a new angle. I have been wanting to showcase this photo, and the prompt photo also has blurred movement on it, so here we are.

From the Rudd collection, you can just barely make out the little girl in this photo. The photo itself is about 2 inches by 2.5 inches. The exposure is terrible and I can’t tell whether it is due to time, exposure to the elements, or just bad photographic processing that is causing the image to be so darned dark. I remembered about a little program called Picnic that is available for free if you use Google+ (which I do) and wondered, what can be done to reveal what is hiding here?

But now you can!

And voila! We have a blurred but cute image of a child sitting on or standing by a garden fence, holding a stick or flower, with vines and a wide yard in the background. What a nice story it tells. I can see why the photographer wanted to capture this moment in the first place!

For other interpretations of the prompt, click over to Sepia Saturday. You will be happy you did!

Blurring the lines a bit

Women with guns and axes

Mrs Marvel

4 comments

January 24, 2013

Guns ‘n axes

You really need to spend some time studying this great Rudd family picture. It’s a real photo postcard of a brand that is unfortunately unidentified by my regular source. Regardless, take a good look here. At first blush it looks like four women sitting outside a camping tent. Now, look in their laps.

Do not mess with these women! :-)

Three children, one very big bow

Mrs Marvel

2 comments

January 22, 2013

Three children, one very big bow

This real photo postcard of the AZO brand shows three children somehow connected with the Rudd collection. Unfortunately, no one took the time to write on the back of the photo identifying who they are. The stamp box has the triangles pointing up on top and down on bottom, so that dates the card between 1910-1930. I’d guess this is somewhere in the middle of that range. I love how the socks are all a bit saggy, which to me indicates these are normal, rough and tumble kids who dressed up for this particular occasion.

Just what’s going on here?

Mrs Marvel

16 comments

January 18, 2013

A ship at canal side?

This week’s Sepia Saturday gives us to wonder about what is happening in the whole photo, not just the couple in a piece of the image. I am reminded of the photographic battle between my Grammie and Grandpa Jim. Jim liked pictures of scenery, Grammie liked pictures of people. So, Jim would take a picture of say, the Grand Canyon, and down in the corner or off to the side would be a tiny little person.

Today I am featuring a few pictures in my collection that have me wondering, just what is going on here? Feel free to add your thoughts as well. The only one I’m really certain of is the ship above. It’s at the side of a canal. BUT what it’s doing there is the mystery. Was it taking on cargo? Delivering supplies? Refueling?

Not exactly a thrill ride!

And this one, you would never EVER catch me on that cable car! I think this could be one of those rigs set up to start building a bridge over a river. Or, it could BE the bridge over the river.

UPDATE: Thanks to site reader Mike Brubaker, I got to looking at vintage photos of the Spanish Aero Car ride which traverses the Niagra River below the falls. The photo above is virtually identical to some others found online, and click here for the wiki entry.

Plenty of supervisors

This one here has several things going on. There’s a bridge over a canal or ditch, a fellow down in the ditch, and several fellows up above on the bridge “supervising” the operations. I can’t tell what kind of work is going on though.

To wander through the internet and wonder what is going on in some other photos, click over to Sepia Saturday.

Expand your view

Holding Mama’s skirt

Mrs Marvel

no comments

January 18, 2013

Don’t go too far

This cute little photo of a cute little girl is about 3″ square and features a pretty girl in a pretty dress. She is holding onto the skirt of someone standing next to her. You can see the adult’s arm in the upper left corner of frame. I don’t know if this is part of a larger picture and the family had this one cropped down to show the little girl, or if like many children, she wasn’t having any part of sitting by herself. As in the “hidden mothers” phenomenon, parents often have to stay with a child to help them stay calm for a photograph or other type of event. That might have been the case here as well.

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