You Too Can Photograph Beautiful Models

Lesson I INTRODUCTION TO ART PHOTOGRAPHY Good art photography is about one-half technical and one-half imaginative. Any good photographer, well trained in darkroom and camera techniques will find the first half quite simple. The second half is considerably more difficult. There are fine points that the photographer must master in order to successfully produce quality art photos. They are posing, lighting, and creative imagination. Post marked Feb. 14, 1955 from Washington, D.C. and sent to Dr. Alfred Thelin, Jr. 208 third St., N.W., Albuquerque, New Mexico from the National Institute of Art Photography, included are a couple of sample photos, and a lesson plan for home nude photography.

Two More From Maurice Seymour

I'd love to know who this woman is. Taken by Chicago based Maurice Seymour, this is another post of theatrical portraits from one of the most talented commercial photographers I've run across. To pull up some more Seymour portraits, go to the labels section at the bottom of this post and click on Seymour's name. Stamped on the back of both prints, "Chicago Herald-World S. BJURSTROM", and "THANKS FOR CREDIT MAURICE SEYMOUR PHOTOGRAPHER CHICAGO, ILLINOIS."

Vaudeville Love Triangle

Hugh Herbert was a Vaudeville performer and writer who made the transition to films. Most famous in the sound era from the 1930's through the early 50's he was noted for playing eccentric millionaires, and dim witted professors. His trade mark was his fluttering fingers while making a hoo-hoo-hoo sound, which was supposedly the inspiration for Daffy Duck. His first wife was Vaudeville and Broadway dancer Anita Pam. Pam appeared in seven Broadway shows between 1925 and 1933. Herbert's second wife was Rose Herbert, nee Epstein. Hugh Herbert, Rose Herbert, and Anita Pam all appeared in the 1928 film, Lucky In Love. This is a picture of Rose Herbert standing in front of an ad for Anita Pam.

A Woman's Portrait

I have a number of commercial portraits of women in my collection. As I've noted before, portraits of men are often very similar, but portraits of women are quite varied. While men's clothing and hair styles usually don't vary much within any era, woman's looks can be all over the place.

Tin Type Before and After

This is from back when I was working at the photo lab. Every so often I could talk the digital department to do a little repair work on some of the old photos. The original is a 19th century tin type of an African American lady. After digital corrections, the generation of a black & white negative, I made this nice print.

From Belgium

The person who sold these four images to me, told me that they were estate photos from a family that had come to the United States from Belgium. The street scene has signs in French, as well as the word, "Doyon." Doyon is a town in the Namur province, in the French speaking part of Belgium, so it's a good bet that the information is correct. It's very difficult to see, but there is an arrow drawn on to the group picture (the third lady from the right) identifying the woman as Lena Jagger. Another wedding photo without women. The portrait of the lady is labeled Christianson-Leberman. It's written in pencil right below the woman, so it may be the name of the subject, or the photographer.

Getting 75's Ready, World War 1

I know quite a lot about photographic printing, but not a lot about commercial printing. Anyway, I bought a stack of these at one of those antique malls, and after some research, I think, but won't promise, that they are rotogravures. When I was working at the photo lab, I had copy negs made, and then printed black & white photos of some of them. The real question I have is, what was their purpose, and what were they from? With the official U.S. logo in the bottom right corner of the image, two things come to mind. 1.) Photos passed by a military censor. 2.) Images released by the government, and if you know anything about the way Woodrow Wilson practically took over the American press for the war effort, that's the more likely of the two explanations. Too, did they come from a magazine or from some sort of government, propaganda campaign? Over the next couple of months, I'll be publishing a lot more of these images. The caption, "Getting 75's ready to move into position. 313th F. A. supporting 80th Div. Near Nixville."