The Photographers Shadow
posted by Bighappyfunhouse @ 10:21 PM
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A Journey Through Junkland
Flea Markets, Thrift Stores, Antique Shops, Garage & Estate Sales, Found Photographs, Collecting, Odd Finds, Swaps
A Journey Through Junkland
Flea markets, thrift stores, antique shops,
garage and estate sales, found photographs, collecting, odd finds,
swaps and more
Thursday, June 15, 2006
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30 Comments:
There's something oddly sinister about some of these... Specially that one of the kids in snow suits. It looks like something is coming to get them.
How observant of you to notice this common theme. As Clare said, I love the sense of menace in them. Great post!
focus on photographers, SUPER SERIE !
Box cameras and Brownie Hawkeyes....Hold still and watch the birdie...With the sun over the photog's shoulder everybody had to squint
I was thinking the same thing. A few of them DO look a little creepy. It makes we want to go photograph children with horns on or something.
Great Post! Although, it kinda creeped me out after a few.
i think the one with the woman standing in front of the big urn-like planter thing is creepy- you can't really see where the shadow connects. also, it doesnt look like the shadow is holding up a camera in many of the pictures. might they have been taken with an older, differently styled camera? (were there commonly-used cameras that you didnt hold up to your face?)
Clare, I was thinking the same thing about some of them. The cowboy made me think, "Boy, there's a Stephen King story in the making!"
I like the one where it looks like they are all trying to escape. Creepy!
Also, what is the story behind the woman in the jumpsuit?
Nat,
As Mutha Fletcher indicated, all the photos were probably taken with a box camera or a Brownie Hawkeye. When using these particular cameras, you held the camera at about chest level and looked DOWN into the viewfinder. You did not hold the camera up to your face. Box cameras were produced from the 1800's until about 1960. On a personal note, when I was a child, I had an Aunt who still had a Brownie Hawkeye. When it came time to take family pictures, everyone would hold the camera up to their face except for my Aunt who held her camera at her waist and looked down. It always confused me as a kid as to what the heck she was doing!
What disturbs me is that one of the women in the pictures (image of two women standing together, one wears glasses and there is a shadow of a female photographer) looks exactly like my grandmother.
As a photographer I end up getting shadows in pictures sometimes but not as often as those using box cameras seemed to.
So charming, individually you wouldn't really notice much about the pictures, (although they do inspire a nice eerie sense of nostalgia,) but together: after pointing out the shadowy similarity, they become a hypnotic series of mysterious and borderline nefarious snapshots of some dark anomaly stalking unassuming people on their lawns and porches... Very lovely.
In some of the pictures, it almost looks as if it was framed to include the shadow -- the subject is not perfectly centered but is off center so the shadow can be framed in the picture. Odd.
Proving that even shadows used to wear hats more often.
Its interesting that almost all the shadow images could be cropped out without losing any of the subject.
What a cool theme for a bunch of photos! Looking at them as a group like this is so ominous...
Ron, do you crop your photos? Just curious.
I have always liked photographer shadow shots. I especially like them if the shadow is somehow interacting with the subject. Thanks for posting!
I think *every* shot of me as a child has Mom's shadow with the Brownie lurking at the bottom! And as Mutha Fletcher commented, I'm squinting in every damn one, due to the sign behind her, straight in my eyes. AL-ways an attractive look...
Not quite as creepy as the people with the writing on their foreheads - but still pretty creepy when you put all of those images together as a series!
I've always loved these old brownie shots with shadows in them. Nice collection.
It's like sometimes the shadows become the main subject of the picture and I like the mistery linked with those shadows...a great selection as always!
what a beauty selection.
thought about what was behind the expressions and the periods.
american families... always a good study.
Mystery Shadow Theater 1900
(Just add your own comments) :)
I love them. The photographer's accidental presence makes the viewer's perception of the photo wonderfully altered. It calls attention to the context and the reltionships and the reasons the photos were taken.
I absolutely love the Cat-in-the act shot. It is now my work comps wallpaper. Great face he's making. The leave me alone I'm busy licking myself look.
I'm not entirely convinced that the shadow in the picture of the jumping dog is actually the photographer's, but regardless of that, it's a great set of pictures.
My grandparents' wedding portrait -- outdoors against a weathered shed door with the whole party around them -- has some shadows of witnesses/guests along the edge and it adds an air of mystery to the image. Who are they? Why aren't they in the frame?
Great...the fashions in the photographs change, but the shadow could be your own..!
In the photo of the woman standing in front of the monument (I think it's the 16th from the top) the shadow appears as if it is either disembodied from it's owner or that the photographer was jumping because the shadow doesn't go out of frame.
Sinister? I see every pose I've posed and photographed. Frankly I have more pix of my thumb than my shadow! Amazing how uncreative we are in posing people for pictures.
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