April 12, 2007: Bathing girl revue 1922

[Cloud]

cool picture. I'm wondering a bit about the "costumy" aspect of it--do you see the one with the dog? and the one with the dalmation print? and some of those . . . I can't even identify WHAT they were thinking of!

[glatt]

I get the feeling that these aren't examples of typical swimsuits from that era, but rather the fancy suits. I think typical suits were much more plain.

[littlenickyer]

yet another example of the wanton strumpetism of the ladies of the 1920s. Why, you can even see their kneecaps! Scandalous. I would challenge he who framed this shot to a bout of fisticuffsmanship, but I imagine he is already dead.

[BigV]

I would challenge he who framed this shot to a bout of fisticuffsmanship, but I imagine he is already dead.

Bare knuckles it is, then!

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The whole thing makes me think: there was a time when smiling for a photograph was not the convention.

Someone told me once that this had to do with camera technology of the time--you had to hold perfectly still for up to a minute for the film to fully expose. If you tried to hold your smile that long and faltered, your face would be blurry(-ier).

On the other hand, there are apparently still places today where not-smiling is the custom. When we were looking at houses for sale recently, we went through one home that had family photos (the posed kind you take in a studio) covering every single wall, dozens and dozens of them, and not a single smile among any of them. It was really creepy.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Someone told me once that this had to do with camera technology of the time--you had to hold perfectly still for up to a minute for the film to fully expose. If you tried to hold your smile that long and faltered, your face would be blurry(-ier).

On the other hand, there are apparently still places today where not-smiling is the custom. When we were looking at houses for sale recently, we went through one home that had family photos (the posed kind you take in a studio) covering every single wall, dozens and dozens of them, and not a single smile among any of them. It was really creepy.

In the 20's and in that kind of sunlight (note the squinting) the exposure would have been quick enough to allow smiling. I think the sun made for the grimmaces. Earlier film called for exposures of more than two minutes, thus the petrified faces.

no idea about the creepy ones tho. undead?

[Cloud]

I think big cans have always been cool . . . fashion trends notwithstanding

[DanaC]

What a smashing picture. No. 7 from the right on the back row looks a little like my gran.

[footfootfoot]

probably didn't pan the camera, but used a special camera like a noblex where the lens rotates as the film moves past the open shutter or a slit shutter passes across the film. I'll dig up some links later. I've got the inch here.

[HungLikeJesus]

I got lucky and found this link: http://www.panoramicphoto.com/ which explains:

The panoramic camera is a unique invention in that it has the capability of "panning" both camera and film resulting in an image that can display up to a full 360 degree view.

The most popular camera, at that time, was the Circuit camera, a large, box-like machine that was mounted on a sturdy tripod and featured a clock-like mechanism that would transport the film in one direction while the camera panned in the opposite direction - exposing the film (quite slowly) as it traveled past the lens.

I noticed that some of the pictures from that site had the same two vertical lines - I first thought that bathing photo had been folded.

[footfootfoot]

for starters

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...ex_150ux.shtml

[HungLikeJesus]

Maybe one of the older people on this site can explain what they mean by "film"?

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

Maybe one of the older people on this site can explain what they mean by "film"?

Film is what you use when you need real resolving power and pixels are just too chunky.

Here's a website of a guy I met during a "mammoth camera" workshop I took several years ago. Nice guy, a lot of info, he's in the right place at the right time.

http://www.bigshotz.co.nz/index.html

[DanaC]

A piece of dark paper on which a small imp paints something really fast

[HungLikeJesus]

Sorry DanaC, I obviously didn't mean you. I said "one of the older people."

Maybe they're all napping.