Sunday, August 21, 2011

The Postcard Bride


















A real photo postcard was just that. Rather than using a commercial printing process, each individual postcard was printed with an enlarger, on light sensitized paper with a stamp box and space for address and message on the back, and then developed in a chemical bath. A number of companies, most notably Kodak, made photo postcard stock, and most professional photo studios, photo finishers, and many home darkrooms kept it on hand. Kodak even made a camera, the A3, that yielded a negative that could be printed without cropping on a standard postcard. (I think it used 620 roll film, but I haven't been able to verify that.) So, I wonder how many copies of this image was ordered by the bride. Did she slip one into the wedding invitation, or with the thank you notes for the wedding gifts? All we can really know is that this particular card was never mailed and no information was recorded on the back. My guess is that it's from the twenties or thirties.

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