Lawn Ornament?

When the common bird bath, mirror ball or those concrete kissing dutch children just won't do, show up your neighbors while using the rocks in your yard. Everyone will want one!

Seriously, there was fierce bidding on this odd image – not that anyone was sure what this cairn (carn in Gaelic, meaning memorial) was doing in a mid-western farmyard. It is an impressive piece of work, and if that is the builder posing in a similarly iconic way, it is why this photograph was taken; the composition clearly means to encompass man, house and cairn. Was it built for a reason, did it remind the owner of the home country, or "just because"? Is it still standing (let me know, if you know)?

The house is a sturdy but severe example of the American central hallway farmhouse with one room on each side, kitchen wing on the back, dimly lit rooms in the upper story. The Aeromotor Company (Chicago) windmill made pumping water easier than the hand pump.

Puss in Photobooth

This small strip of paper raised some questions in my mind: I was sure it was an early photobooth example when I got it, but then wondered about the indistinct vignettes between images rather than hard masking – which made me question whether it was from an automated booth.

But everything else makes me stick with my first opinion that it is from this young woman's visit to that very newfangled contraption (early 1920s): (1) The photobooth uses a strip of positive paper that advances with each picture snap before being developed and delivered to the user, so perhaps the early machines did not have a distinct mask between images (more research is due on my part). (2) The unique attraction to the booth phenomenon was the privacy that it afforded and the tendency to be more relaxed and more experimental in your poses, after all, there was no negative and no record other than what came out of the machine after the set number of exposures – if you didn't like what you saw, you didn't show it around, if you hated what you saw you tore it up into tiny pieces or set it on fire. (3) This particular subject went into the booth with a defined purpose in mind, taking props with her and striking poses she might have hesitated to take if in a studio (unless she was a free spirit with a lot of confidence and moxie). (4) This print is not a familiar sort of photo proof that a studio would use – for the times it is too small and hasn't the sharpness of a negative process (again, more research to see if I know what I am talking about on that score).

Written across the top of the photo's image (don't get me started – there must be a special place in hell for people who write on the face of photographs!), with a broad-nibbed fountain pen, is the name Puss Van Arsdale. Someone other than the subject wrote that since I doubt she would need to remind herself of her identity. Is "Puss" a nickname along the lines of kitten, or slang for face (or does it have a non-English origin and meaning I don't recognize)? Or is it a joke referring to the nature of these poses?

Puss begins with a profile pose, then a come-hither look over her Chinese fan, followed by the sultry siren, the serious graduate with a tennis racket (Huh? Is that what she majored in?) and then a less confident expression beneath a Chinese parasol (part of which has been cut off, by the machine we assume). Altogether, Puss must have been something of a character – at least in front of the impersonal lens of the booth.

The condition of this print was very poor; for such a small print in square inches, restoration took something on the order of 5 hours, but I think it is representative of what Puss Van Arsdale came away with (pleased with herself, do you suppose?). Little did she suspect so many people would be looking at the result of her few minutes work.

Fire Brigade

Six members of a UK fire brigade pose on their decked out equipment for a special celebration early in the 20th century – bows on the driver, running lamp, whip and bridle, Union Jack on the horse and wagon. I can't read enough of the letters on the wagon to make any educated guess as to what it identifies. Here are a matched set of dappled draft horses only a few years before internal combustion fire engines will send them into retirement. 

The late Victorian house has toned ornamental courses on Flemish Bond brickwork. This is a quite large print taken in nearly shadowless light on a breezy day (the trees and vines are not frozen by the shutter speed and the f-stop has made for shallow depth of field).

Doris & Lois of Brooklyn

Why are we intrigued by the mundane, everyday scenes that people choose to photograph? I believe it is a sense of common relationship, a sort of kinship, because we all take those photos that mean little to anyone except perhaps family and friends – or so we believe. In a way, an image that is disassociated with its original owner is more comfortable to us than reading a diary or personal letters that were never intended for us. But there are also revealing details in a photo if we look closely.

When we look at this snapshot – identified as Doris and Lois Kroeger of Brooklyn – there is something immediate in this moment recorded nearly a century ago. Here are sisters we assume, perhaps aware, but maybe not, that they are being photographed by a family member from a porch or window, but they are not posing in any self conscious way. They are intent on one another, particularly Lois’ upturned face and earnest expression; it is not certain if they are holding hands.

Clues to the age of the image:

An established residential neighborhood of substantial houses, but no vehicles and only one other person visible; no evidence of traffic on the streets even though the snow could not be very recent (snow has melted on the uninsulated roofs); so not much to go on except the architecture which looks late 19th century. There is a pole on the corner indicating power and/or telephone.

The girl’s double breasted coats are a style that recurs for more than 50 years, with the possible exception of the slightly puffed sleeves at the shoulders. Doris’ cap is not much help, but Lois’ fabric bonnet and the style of her doll makes me guess turn of the century and surely before 1910.

Hook & Ladder 1869

You are looking at the first Minneapolis Hook and Ladder Company, 1869. Their uniforms have embroidered hooks and ladders on the chest; some men hold axes, and the very young boys standing at the right may be holding hooks which appear to be decorated with flowers and greenery, as does the entire vehicle. This is an occasion for civic pride.

Surely they have a fire house, but here they pose before Vail's imposing undertaking establishment which advertises a Coffin Wares Room. Do we take that to mean readymade coffins or does the company sell coffin hardware, decorative handles and castings, and linings for the coffin-making trade?

There is someone looking on behind the curtain in the only open window above. As is common, the side of the building has ads and event notices pasted directly on it – which we can't read due to the low resolution of this early image.

We would not be wrong in assuming that many of the men in this picture spent time as soldiers in the very recent war; as dangerous as their current job may be, surely it is a relief from what they have witnessed and been engaged in, and at least this is home and what they do saves lives and property in their community.

It's a bright day, perhaps overcast; photographers like such scattered and reflected light because there are no harsh shadows on faces.