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Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Vintage Photos

My daughter and I were sorting through old photographs during her recent visit.  We had a drawer full of photos from my husband's family that needed to be identified and sorted.  That led our daughter to decide to "borrow" a few old family photos and scan some others to create a photo wall in her apartment.  I thought I'd share a couple of the photos that she scanned.  There's something about the utter seriousness of vintage childhood portraits.

This picture is of my grandfather with his sister and older brother.  His brother looks so intense it makes me wonder what the photographer had said to them.


The second photo is of my husband's great-grandfather and his sister.  There were two portraits made the same day. This is the "fun" photo of them with their toys.


17 comments:

  1. What precious old photos! I adore these.

    You would really enjoy my friend's blog, Connie at Forgotten Old Photos
    http://forgottenoldphotos.blogspot.com/
    I have learned so much from her about dating pictures by the clothing, the lengthy time it took to "take" a photo, etc. which explains the sad faces many times!

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  2. My aunt recently posted a bunch of old photographs of our family on Facebook. Most of these were from the 40s and 50s, but it was really fun seeing some of my favorite childhood haunts (namely the lake cottage we all used to go to as kids) during that time. Even though most of the photos were just friends and family drinking beers, those images depict such an air of class that is so absent from today.

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  3. I've always seen photos like these hanging in my grandparents house and wondered why the kids were never smiling! I guess back then getting a photo taken was serious business!

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  4. Hi! Maple lane sent me over. Your old photos are wonderful! Having your photograph taken was serious business..most time children were told to stand real still and not even blink. Sometimes they had to hold a pose for a few minutes..exposure times were very long. Smiling was not encouraged because no one could smile for as long as the exposures took:)

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  5. Wow - they are amazing!! It looks like your grandfather, great aunt & great uncle in the first picture were hypnotized. Such interesting toys and clothing in the second picture.

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  6. Awesome old photos. It's great that you have these. My family have very few photos old like yours.

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  7. Reading you post got me to wondering about when it became the norm to smile in a photograph....came across this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-16219211 very strange but also interesting!

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  8. very cool! I love old vintage photos, even if I don't know who they are.
    Debbi
    -yankeeburrowcreations

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  9. What treasures. I love old photos...I just framed a picture of my father-in-law with his two brothers when they were little boys. My kids will probably fight over it some day. :o)

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  10. Such a cool olden photo. Wonder why none of the people in older photos smiled???

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  11. I love old photos, we have lots from my husbands family, many of which grace our walls

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  12. Great pics. Definitely worth saving and displaying. How lucky you are to have these. thanks for sharing, liz

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  13. These are wonderful. It is great that you have been able to keep them in your family. So many of them get lost.

    Hugs,
    Laura

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  14. You are absolutely right about the seriousness! Too funny to see that now. How neat that you still have all of these old photos. They'll make a neat addition to your daughter's place.

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  15. The older I get, the more I appreciate vintage portraits. One can learn a lot about history and styles and expected behavior by studying them. Thank you for sharing.

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  16. Oh how I love old photos! My mom has 2 huge boxes of them and she lost them in her basement!!!! I told her not to put them down there because I was going to pick them up when I was in town and she did! Hopefully someday I'll find them.

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  17. omg they all look terrified.

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