A Photo Treasure Found (Daily Mail)

To me, these have the touch of a gifted photographer, equal to many of fame. What do you think?

Incredible black-and-white images from a grand tour of Europe in 1904 | Daily Mail Online

Truly there have been far, far more great photographers than ever have been recognised in the official history.

 

The low viewpoint of many of these pictures strongly suggest to me the use of a waist level reflex camera of some kind.

It's fascinating work, shows us an honest look at European society over a century ago. Reminds me of one thing I hope to accomplish, not fame but simply leaving some photographs behind that show the world I live in. Will anyone ever see any of it in 2118?

 

Rick H.

I find these very interesting but not all that special. It's reminiscent of work done in the American West 20 years earlier. The impressive part, to me, is that someone was working in "straight photography" during this period which was dominated by pictorialism.

The impressive part, to me, is that someone was working in "straight photography" during this period which was dominated by pictorialism.

That was one of the striking things to me - somehow a style out of time. Curtis (I assume that is who you referenced) hit it a good bit, but had more portrait / posed, not unexpected since his purpose was documentary. Certainly not a negative, since I greatly admire his work

Curtis, Watkins and others . . . They were documenting the American west the way that this photographer was documenting Europe. The subject matter was very different but goal appears to be, mostly, the same.

Thanks.

 

I love these old pictures, reminding of times now past.

I think "straight" shots are always admired regardless off the time period. WE all want to capture what we see to reflect a slice of time in our minds. Art, pictorialism, etc comes later after we tire of just shooting history.

 

I just realized why old street shots are so much more interesting than street shots of current life. Beside the odd clothes, horses etc, all photos record truth. So when we see current life, the truth is truth. Nothing unusual. But we see an old photo, where truth is no longer true to be seen, it's so unusual and distinctive.

truth is truth

 

Can this be so?

A great selection.

The photographer could have been using a very early version of a Kodak 'Pocket Film Camera' that still used a bulb to fire the shutter and took roll film similar to the cut negatives in the author's negative index system to get the 'candid' shots.

He/she could hand hold this camera as it had a shutter that topped out at 1/100 sec, where as the standard 'I' (Instantaneous) on a Box Brownie was 1/33.

 

That was one of the striking things to me - somehow a style out of time. Curtis (I assume that is who you referenced) hit it a good bit, but had more portrait / posed, not unexpected since his purpose was documentary. Certainly not a negative, since I greatly admire his work

Some of those Curtis pictures, the the ones that I like most, appear candid, not staged.

That is the impressive quality of these old photos, they seem to compress time or push the realities of the past forward in a weird sort of way.

The human quality in them, the eyes and looks on faces of people with many of the identical qualities imposed by work, joy, concern of daily life transcends time.

The faces on the four boys with the wooden shoes, and the man with the pipe staring down the camera at the street card game for example....

Edited September 23, 2018 by Moving On

Something went terrible wrong with frame #20. I suspect scanning of curved negative. The blurriness is within the depth of field and in the bottom half of the image

 

Nevertheless, a fantastic record of buildings, attire and candid life in the very early 20th century - great viewing, thanks for posting

 

Caption below photo in question

A group of men in Germany sit on the side of a street and appear to be playing a card game while one man smoking a pipe stares down the camera

Can this be so?

This isn;t the thread for a philospphical argumnet regarding what is truth., The old photos presented are truth in as much as they weren't edited, photoshopped, etc. They seem to be aa representation of what occured at that time in front of the camera. So they're "truthful".