Dancing at Home

  

It looks like someone threw a party and they broke out the record player.  45s, I'd bet. 

That's A Lot of Booze

  

I don't know why these people are in a party mood, but whatever the reason, it clearly involves lots of alcohol.  There are bottles everywhere.  There's' a processor's stamp on the back, "PIXIE SNAP JUNE 1952" 

The Living Piñata

 

Well, she is hitting him with a stick, and he is wearing a party hat. 

Slumber Party

 

I do love the color restoration feature.  Dated "NOV 69"  so it's either early Christmas with all those candy stripes or a slumber party with the sleeping bag and all those feet. 

Party Time

This one's going to the last from the throw-in file for awhile.  So, there's a clock on the wall, it's ten after eleven, it's dark out, so it's P.M.  Too late for dinner, so it has to be a party.  The color restoration setting really worked well on this one.

More Name Tags

Photos of people wearing name tags drive me crazy.  It's usually impossible to read them. 

Black Shriners

There's a stamp on the back of this print, "ALEXANDER L. ADAMS, PHOTOGRAPHER, 1036 WESTMOOR DR.  N. W. AM 0934, ATLANTA, GA."  I couldn't find any biographical information about Adams.  Some of his photos are in the archives of Emory University in Atlanta.  The only other photo I could find of his was from the 1950s, it was taken in a beauty parlor and showed a young lady having her makeup applied.  Near as I can tell, Adams was one of the many commercial photographers who took pictures of what ever his clients paid him to take.  His prime importance is that he recorded black life in Atlanta.

I'm not going to go into the history of the Shriners.  For those who care, there's plenty of info on-line.  They are affiliated with the Masons, and they do have black affiliates, that date back at least to the early twentieth century.  I suspect they might go back towards the end of the Civil War based on some of the pictures I've seen, but I couldn't find any actual dates.

Did You Hear What They Said?

So, the photographer is focused on the band.  He's taken a picture of  three guys, hands on the microphone, so people can't hear what they're saying.  The woman who is standing by the bandstand has a shocked look on her face.  What were they discussing?  I'll bet it was about that  newfangled rock & roll and how it would go away by 1960.

Crazy Drunk Guys

My favorite is the guy, dead center, with the great sun glasses, so wasted that he can't tell that his head is being used as a table.  Is it just me or do some of these drunks look like they're wearing wigs.

Kymene

If nothing else, collecting old photographs is a learning experience.  If I had never seen this picture, I'd never have known about Kymene.  Next time you wipe something down with a paper towel, and if it doesn't turn into a wet mushy blob, thank Kymene.  The stuff is a resin that gets added to things like paper and cardboard to keep them from falling apart.  Originally produced by the Hercules Powder Company, it's been around since 1951 and it's still in use.  Let's just hope, for the sake of the lady in the barrel, that Kymene isn't carcinogenic.

Queen Elizabeth

That's her in the funny hat.  Actually, this one is captioned, "R.M.S. QUEEN ELIZABETH. Nassau. Cruise of 1965."  We are not amused.

Drinking at Christmas

So how do I know it's Christmas?  Take a look at the cards hanging on the back wall.  My mother used to string up Christmas cards like that, and I always thought it an odd thing to do.  Anyway, written on the back, "Fran, Tim, Betty, Bill, Mary, Bonnie & Joe." 

The Here, There, and Everywhere Collection-Eating Outside

I tried to match up faces from my last post, but I just couldn't do it.  Click on The Here There and Everywhere Collection in labels, etc., etc., etc.

The Party

Written on the back, "Dec-1961 Miller Co."  To put it mildly, there are a lot of Miller Companies in the United States.  At first I thought it was a company with an all black work force, albeit with a white boss.  (See the guy on the far left.)  But, after I blew things up, I noticed that there were a number of white people in the background.  I'd love to know if the employees self segregated, or if the party organizer purposely seated all the black workers at the same table.

Russland 2

As I noted in the first post from this series, the quality of the prints are not the best.  I did what I could to pull some detail from the second picture but it was just two faded to get much.  All the prints are mounted on card.  There's no date on the top image, the bottom, as can be seen written on the print, "11 XI 20."

Click on Russland in labels, etc. What's with the water pitchers?  Or are they vodka pitchers?

Russland 1

I just purchased an envelope of eight photos from Russia (Via Florida)  that I'l be posting in lots of two over the next week or so.  Some are still in a half way decent condition, some are so faded as to be barely recognizable as photographs; some are dated, some are not, but they all seem to be from the same general era.  And, even though they are all around a hundred years old, they still reek of cigarette smoke.

The top photo is dated "30 XI 21" in the European style of date, month and year.  The second,  "11 XII 21."  Russia was a late adapter of the Gregorian calendar, so even though the days might be from the archaic Julian calendar, the years should sync up with modern day usage.

Note on the second photo one woman is being fed by another.

Click on Russland in labels.

Potluck

As I've noted before, sometimes I buy envelopes of old photographs, some of which I want and others, not.  Anyway, I don't throw any of them away, but I do have a box of old snapshots that will never get posted on this blog.  This one was kind of floating between those two poles, but in the end, I decided to publish it because it reminded me of my childhood.  I grew up in a small town where there was an endless stream of fundraiser/potluck dinners.  My mother couldn't cook worth a damn, so I enjoyed eating other people's food, and while it's true that those potlucks were dominated by macaroni casseroles and ambrosia  (I'm still not certain what ambrosia is) it was a hell of a lot better than what I got at home.

There's a processors stamp on the back, "PRINT MADE BY KODAK, R, SEP. 76."  The R stands for R-print, a reversal image made directly from a color transparency.

The Drunk in the Background

He might not be drunk, but I suspect he knew what it was like.  Take a close look at the table, and Polaroid photos with their unique pull tabs can be seen.  There's just a bit of the brown staining, common on early Polaroid photographs, were part of the image is underdeveloped, along the left edge of this print.

Farewell MC, Farewell

I'm miserable.  I had a cold a couple of weeks ago, it ended, and now I've got another one.  I think I did this to myself.  I've always moved around Los Angeles in a variety of ways.  I grew up in a small, rural town where most people walked long distances, and that's a habit I've never broken.  I get around on my bike, I drive, and I use mass transit.  Anyway, I turned 62 in January, qualified for a senior's transit pass, so I'm spending more time on the buses, trolleys, and subways, surrounded by coughing people.  You'd be surprised  how many people fail to cover their mouths while hacking away.

So, I really need to get some rest, but my throat's sore, so I can't get to sleep.  So, what else is there to do but add another post to The New Found Photography.

Written on the back, "MC Farewell, Bernice Huestis, Dixie Holden, Norma Sharp, Rosanut Schwick."  And yes, I did look up Rosanut, and it is a real name.  The photo was printed the "WEEK OF JULY-57."  What's interesting is that this photo was taken just twelve years after the end of World War 2.  We like the image of huge numbers of American women trudging off to war work, but the fact is, most stayed home.  Most women who worked in war plants were lower middle class and below.  This doesn't look like a wealthy household, so I'm betting that at least one or two of these ladies built a plane or two, their husband or boyfriends came home and they became housewives.  Were they bored by afternoon parties, or relieved to be at home.  Depends on the woman, I guess.

Yet More Germans Enjoying Themselves

Well, it's another real photo postcard,  it's on Agfa stock, and the guy on the left looks kind of European.

Sometimes I got to antique stores or flea markets and go through boxes of old photos and postcards, looking for that one image I really like.  Sometimes I buy envelopes full of photos off of eBay.  While I can't remember, I suspect, that the last three posts all came from the same envelope.