The German American Collection, The Broken Ones

It's my preferred practice, when scanning mounted prints, to crop out everything but the actual photograph. Too, I prefer not to impose a symbolic meaning to old, family photos. But in this case, where a dealer went to an estate sale and bought up boxes of old photos that no one was willing to save from the prying eyes of strangers, it only seems right that there should be some damage to things. Take a good look at the child on the left in the final print. I'm convinced that's a little boy in the dress. What were they playing? Peter Pan? Click on German American in the labels section to bring up the rest of the collection.

Pals

Two affectionate soldiers? I know there's a modern day obsession with with trying to define people by their sexuality, and yes, there is a very good chance that these two soldiers were gay. But it's also possible that they were two men who faced war together and were pals. Pals who have faced death together and have a strong emotional, rather than sexual bond.

Hello world

Hello world

Fox Dreams

What a faraway look. Some would say dreamy, others, vacant. With the strange, distorted reflections in the window glass, perhaps hallucinatory. I don't like to crop the photos I scan. Silly perhaps, but I like to leave things as the photographer found them. But if I had the original negative and I printed it, I'd crop it so that only her face and the window would show.

The Epworth League Album 7, Old Folks (And Young) At Home

The picture of the little girl and her cats seems somewhat out of place on this page. A grand daughter, perhaps, of one of the older seated men, she looks like a model for silent movie star Mary Pickford from Rebbecca of Sunnybrook Farm or Mary Miles Mitner from Anne of Green Gables. Looking at those old silent films, I've always assumed that the look of those actresses was an idealized notion of a rural America that the film makers thought would sell tickets to an urban audience living in tenements. It's surprising to find an actual child who has that care free and innocent image.

Most people have at least heard of Mary Pickford, but Mary Miles Mitner's name may not be familiar to non silent movie fans. During the silent era, Mitner was a very successful child actress who rivaled Pickford in box office appeal. Her career ended in 1923 when she was implicated in the murder of director William Desmond Taylor. Born in 1902, the 21 year old Mitner was involved with the much older and married Taylor. Though never charged, Mitner never made another film. Mitner's mother and Mabel Normand were also said to be involved with Taylor.

The Epworth League Album 6, Ethnic Dress or Strange Fashion?

Are the ladies in the second image wearing some sort of ethnic dress or did they have similar tastes in fashion? I've been looking through Google images searching for a match, and so far no luck. Click on Epworth League in the labels section to bring up the lot.

The Epworth League Album 5, Two More Pages

Anyone who has ever tried to scan in a mis-exposed print will share my frustration. There is a side of me that wants things to look pretty much they way the originals do. There is a side of me that wants them to look better. The problem is that, after the programing has tried to correct exposures, I often get neither.