Mystery Portrait - a photo on Flickriver

Mystery Portrait

            I have absolutely no idea who these people are. I was looking through a series of Agfachrome slides I'd shot in California in the early 1990s and mixed in the box were several 35mm Kodachromes from much, much earlier. I'd guess this photo was shot in the late 1940s or very early 1950s. I don't recognize these good folks as being from either side of my family.

Still, it's possible to draw several conclusions about this photo:

1. The beautifully soft light shows it was shot with a flashbulb. Indeed, affordable consumer-level electronic flash was still a ways in the future.

2. The camera was not a single-lens reflex. The photographer nailed the focus, but failed to compensate for parallax.

3. It's Christmas. At the upper left, a tiny bit of foil garland is peeking into the photo.

4. These folks know and trust the photographer and, unlike people today, are comfortable being photographed.

This image showcases the wonderful way Kodachrome recorded our world. Here are folks from probably 60 years ago -- and they're making eye contact with us from the other side of time.

And they're wishing us Merry Christmas.

Taken on: November 23, 2008

Tags:

Kodachrome

vintage photos

Groups appears in: • Kodachrome • Flashbulbs more » • Vintage Kodachrome « less

Stats: 2,163 views / 4 comments

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder