Found family. This postcard was photographed by Harry Jenkins of Great Yarmouth and posted in 1903 to Frederick Jenkins at 'Photo, High Street, Southwold'. For the background to these photographs see the introduction to the set 'A Family of Photographers'.

Instrumental - c. 1900 - (Via)

Vintage photo- insect costume

Cyanotype.

(Image from Amazon ) If you're a Dan Wells fan—and even if you're not—you should be getting your hands on his hilarious novella, A N...

Willa Cather (right) with Louise Pound, University of Nebraska, early 1890s (Image: Willa Cather Archive)

"E. M. Criswell, Grand Meadow, Minn. Extra finish." A tall bearded fellow--his appearance reminds me of Rasputin, the Russian mystic and confidant to Tsar Nicholas II--stands in front of a painted backdrop and next to an oddly shaped prop as he poses for this cabinet card photo. Is that enigmatic object supposed to look like natural or carved stone? If not, I'm not certain what it's intended to represent. A curious photographer props (huge urns or plants, strange objects, taxidermy animals, etc.) photo originally posted to the Vintage Photos Theme Park on Ipernity: Rasputin and the Amorphous Enigma.

~ Boresome News Recycled - The Dreary Departed Ruthlessly Resurrected ~

sailors & soldiers & cowboys & circles & pyramids using tintype & cabinet card & early photography mostly.

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ca. 1860-90s, [tintype portrait of a man sharing the last of his drink with the other] via Capitol Gallery, Ambrotypes & Tintypes

Climbing. 1908 (via All sizes | Ladder Climber | Flickr - Photo Sharing!)

Whitstable - c. 1890 - (Via)

Paper: Matte We’re not saying the presentation of your gift is as important as the gift itself, but no one wants a present wrapped in old newspaper. Add a touch of elegance to all your gifts with beautifully crafted personalized gift tags. Along with personalized wrapping paper and customized ribbons, your gift will be the one they can’t wait to rip open. Dimensions: 3.5"l x 2"w Sold in set of 10 Printed on 120 lb. 17.5 point thick luxe matte paper, a soft paper with eggshell texture and a smooth finish Pre-punched hole Choice of 4 colors of uncut twine Made in U.S.A. with 30% post-consumer content Designer Tip: To ensure the highest quality print, please note that this product’s customizable design area measures 2" x 3.5". For best results please add 0.125" bleed

DESCRIPTION: Three women standing behind a prop boat. The rolled up canvas is visible above the backdrop. Two of the women are wearing hat while the third is holding one. This photograph was probably taken on a boardwalk or at a fair or carnival. FORMAT: tintype PLATE/CARD SIZE: 1/6 DIMENSIONS HxW (in.): 3 3/8 x 2 3/8 INSCRIPTION(S): None BACKMARK: None FRONTMARK: None PHOTOGRAPHER: Unknown STUDIO LOCATION: Unknown DATE: Circa 1898

Possessed & Obsessed

"The Age of the Beard" at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London examines through photographs the Victorian mania for elaborate facial hair.

The photographer.

American tintype. Ca 1870.

Self portrait of photographer Ben Wittick Date: 1880 - 1890? Negative Number 074477

Cabinet portrait

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Shooot, I paid $10 for this card, back in the day. I think this dealer (it was one of those indoor shows set-up at a shopping mall, if memory serves me right, and it came from Columbia, Miisouri (i.e., the show was in Columbia; the dealer probably was from elsewhere) knew what she had, sort of (it would cost you a whole lot more to buy it from me, not that it's for sale). I like the spunk of people who spent their half-earned cash at the photographer's studio playing around. I hope these happy couples stayed happy, and oft coupled.

We've got a ways to go in this album (there are 132 pictures, though I may not scan every one of them, and others I may scan as pages, rather than individual photos), but the process of putting the album up on Flickr and looking at each individual photo has changed not only the way I feel about this album, but also the way I feel about my photographs in general. I've always been offended by those people (often the kind of people who keep booths in antique malls) who encourage prospective buyers to purchase their photos in order to gain some "instant relatives." Of course in my reaction there is more than a touch of defensiveness. I like the family I've got, my sister and my mother and my stepbrothers, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles and a whole slew of cousins, but I wish I had a wife (who loved me, whom I loved) and children (ditto). I haven't been too successful on that end. So I wish I had more family, wish my father were here and my sister Wendy were here, wish for a completeness that I can never have. But I don't need any "instant relatives." And in looking over a little box of family snapshots on a recent visit home, I realized that those photos have meaning for me that none of my collected images have. Still, in struggling to scan and post this West Coast Chopped-up HodgePodge of a MishMash album, and being frustrated and irritated by the collector's lack of rigor, I realized that, willy-nilly, those are qualities I must treasure too, and that, now that I am in possession of this album, I bear a responsibility to it. Why would that man put that newspaper clipping in the album (the one that tells about the 1915 Washington State College football team, the one that he played right end for, the one that won the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1916)? He didn't need to remind himself that he was right end. He did it for whoever was intended to see the album, but at some point, whoever that was fell by the wayside, and then an antique dealer (well, a used furniture dealer) got ahold of the album, and now I have it. So his relatives are gone, by choice or chance, and I'm left holding the bag. This album, these hundred odd photos, with their long train of unknowns, may be all that's left to evoke a life once lived---this ragtag assemblage-the earthquake photos and the San Francisco parade, the battleships in drydock (coming), the frat boys in line at the makeship latrine (coming), the serious college girls with their microscopes (coming), the hikers on that eighteen-mile slog in the Cascades (more of that coming), the professional photo of New York's Central Park (coming, and what the heck is that here for), and the absolutely wonderful photo of the church(coming), stark, matter-of-fact, amazing in its simplicity. I've always liked the New Testament's admonition that "God is love." I never have troubled myself much beyond that, and I'd guess that, in my rather wayward life, when I've kept those words in front of me, I've pretty much stayed on the path. I regret that I have to choose which photos to buy, and I feel a mite guilty sometimes when I buy the photo of the "prettier" girl (in my, of course, highly subjective opinion). I think that, the closer I got to the divine, the more I would see that, truly, all things are equal. If we all saw things that way, it would be a whole heck of a lot harder to pull the trigger. The point of this little ramble is that the lobster photo puts this album over-the-top. I feel a kinship of common humanity with this goofy guy who wanted this lobster photo in here with everything else. I don't think he wanted to eat the lobster (though he may have enjoyed eating lobster). I think the lobster is an acceptance of the strange, the other, the different, the not-self. "Look at this lobster," the lobster photo says. "It's just a lobster (not dinner). Isn't it weird? Don't you love it?" It is, and I do. I'm going to have to stop bitching about the album after this photo. Oh yeah, this photo is this month's edition of Mrwaterslide's Monthly Magazine.

This is one of my paternal great-grand mothers.

Strange Beauty