Old photographs of American indians

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These photos are from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They are very much a product of their time. If you looked at portraits of English ladies and gentlemen of the same era you would see the same type of posing, with a stern expression on their faces and dressed in their finery.

Photos served a different purpose in those days than they do today. Pictures are common today. Every phone has a camera, innumerable photos can be taken effortlessly, and so candid events are captured. In those earlier times photography was sufficiently complex and exotic that sitting for a portrait was the event. Today you might photograph your lunch to post to Instagram, in those earlier days the act of being photographed was not so frivolous. It was a rare record of you and your family and so it must be treated as a matter of some significance.    

Nude Tokyo

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Man, is that post title click bait or what? I probably ought to be ashamed of myself, but I'm not. Anyway, sorry, but this isn't a post about people scampering around Tokyo without any clothes, instead it is about the work of the Japanese photographer Rumi Ando.

Ando retouches her photos to remove any signs of human life -- people, ducts, advertisements, A/C units etc., leaving only the buildings behind. It is a strangely minimalistic look. She has put out a photo book Tokyo Nude and you can also view more of her work at her Instagram account. HT to Spoon & Tomago.

Playing games

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This is a small series of artwork and photographs of people playing games. They are from the Smithsonian Institutions online archive where there are more examples. If you have the inclination, tear yourself away from a game of computer solitaire and check out the archive.

Photographs of old photographers

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Not exactly self-portraits, but close enough. These pictures, and those after the jump, are a series of photographs of old-timey photographers, some posed and some of them candid. They are from La boite verte's post Des photographes à l’ancienne. There are many more examples at the link.

Colorized pictures from a 1903 Russian costume ball

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In 1903 Tsar Nicholas II, to celebrate the 290 anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, hosted a costume dress ball in the Winter place in St Petersburg. These pictures from that ball were colorized by Olga Shirnina and they certainly are beautiful. Of course the ball occurred in the sunset of an Age, in 15 years it would be swept away.

These pictures, and those after the jump, are from the vintage News post Dazzling Color Photos of the Legendary Romanov Costume Ball of 1903 which has more of the colorized photos, as well as a number of black and white ones. Enjoy.

1939 in Sheridan County, Kansas

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These pictures are from the site Photogrammar which is an archive of photos taken between 1935 to 1945 by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information.

The site has an interactive map. I randomly clicked on a box inside of the map and got pictures from 1939 which were taken in Sheridan County, Kansas. It looks like it was a hardscrabble life, but I've read that, during the Great Depression things were generally better on farms than in the city, so maybe they considered themselves lucky.

Enjoy these pictures, and those after the jump. Of course there are many, many more at the link.

Ogawa Kazumasa's hand colored photographs

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Ogawa Kazumasa was a pioneer Japanese photographer, publisher and photomechanical reproduction. In his day he was perhaps best known for his photographs of the Sino-Japanese and the Russo-Japanese Wars. You can read more about him at TAP's article: Ogawa Kazumasa and the Halftone Photograph: Japanese War Albums at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.

He also experimented in hand coloring photos. This post shows some of his hand colored work. There are more after the jump, and even more at Getty Museum's archive of his work. At that archive you can also find many of his non-colored photographs.

Grandma's home cooking

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From a blurb about the book In Her Kitchen: Stories and Recipes from Grandmas Around the World:

"On the eve of a photography trip around the world, Gabriele Galimberti sat down to dinner with his grandmother Marisa. As she had done so many times before, she prepared his favorite ravioli. The care with which she prepared this meal, and the pride she took in her dish, led Gabriele to seek out grandmothers and their signature dishes in the sixty countries he visited."

These are pictures of a few of the grandmas he visited and their dishes. There are more after the jump, and more at Amusing Planet's What Grandmas Around The World Cook.

1950's minimal California

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These are the photographs of Marvin Rand, a mid 20th Century photographer who specialized in architectural photography. He did a wonderful job of catching the clean and simply lines of the design sensibilities of the time. Found at Flashbak's Marvin Rand’s Gorgeous Photos of California Modern where there are more examples of his work.

Dan Cherry's Tools

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Dan Cherry is a collector of old tools. He arranges items from his collection and photographs them. He uses color, material, type of tools and texture to create his compositions.

I thought I might have posted his work already, but I couldn't find it if I did. At any rate, these are from La Boite Verte's Des Outils Anciens Meticuleusement Arranges. As well as after the jump, there are more examples there and at Dan's Instagram page. Enjoy.

Vintage Avant-garde

Sooner or later even things that are modern and daring look quaint. These costumes were made by the German expressionistic artist and dancer Lavina Schulz in the 1920s. They are via La boite verta.

I did like the detail that she and her husband lived without furniture, but lived in their dance tights so they could choreograph dances and design costumes. Sadly, although perhaps predictably, she came to a sorry end, shooting her husband and then herself as financial ruin closed in on her.

The photographs were taken by Minya Diez-Dührkoop, another German artsy-fartsy type who travelled in the same circles as Lavina.

Soviet Photography

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Sovetskoe Foto (Soviet Photography) was a magazine aimed at amateur Russian photographers. It features articles on technique, equipment and examples of photographers work. These are covers from Sovetskoe Foto, and as you can see many of them in the style of Soviet realism so familiar from their propaganda posters.

They're from the Magazine Rack's archive of  Sovetskoe Foto, a site that digitizes magazines. At that site the contents of the magazines are archived as well, so you can flip through them and get all their content. There are more covers after the jump, and many more at the link.

A taxi driver and his passengers

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Ryan Weideman is a New York based taxi driver and photographers. For years he's taken pictures of the passengers in his cab. He's published a collection of his photos in the book In My Taxi: New York After Hours.

From the Publishers Weekly blurb about his book:

A self-described ``photographer-taxi driver,'' Weideman presents duotone portraits of punks, white- and blue-collar types, prostitutes, club kids and others who rode in his cab before plunging back into New York City's anonymous throng. After migrating east from the California Bay area in 1980, Weideman began driving a spacious Checker cab--capable of accommodating seven passengers--on a 5 p.m.-5 a.m. shift. In a terse, mercurial introductory essay evocative of the city's intensity, he tells tales of life as a cabbie, explains how he captures his subjects on film and reveals their myriad reactions, from enthusiastic to wildly negative. The motley New Yorkers here exhibit many attitudes: some glare menacingly yet comply, some seem exasperated, still others smile, attempt sexy poses or appear blase. Weideman occasionally sets up the camera so that his countenance8 dominates the foreground, separated from the action behind him. These transitory glimpses of radically dissimilar individuals are a sincere, blunt, affectionate document of New York's multicultural night life. 

Via Vintage Everyday.