All bored on the western front?
If you like bathing beauties in masks, perky breasts and giant cucumbers, fun with animals, boys with antlers, tubas on trains, veiled matrons wearing boxing gloves, the occasional skeleton, and several even weirder shots, you might enjoy this quirky collection of old snapshots from Buzzfeed. (The pictures come from Matt Stopera's blog of unusual old photos, Black & WTF.)
There are one or two where I don't even want to know what's going on. I wonder how hard it would be to try to invent stuff like this? I mean, I don't think chickens are as common a part of everyday life for most people as they used to be.
Mike
(Thanks to Jay Townsend)
ADDENDUM: Speaking of weird photos...all things taken into account, this is perhaps one of the most bizarre photographs I have ever seen in my life. It's not a photo I want to publish on my site, but the picture seems stranger to me than anything surrealists could invent when they're trying.
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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
Featured Comment by James: "The second of the two photos you highlight (the young boy and cockerel) immediately struck me as 'somewhat' familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I showed it to my wife, who comes from the far north of Spain. She also felt it was familiar, and reminded me that we possess a very similar mini-chair and a photograph of her grandmother (born 1902) as a young girl sitting in such a chair. In truth, it was the chair that drew our eye. My wife is fairly good with period clothing (she has in the past worked for theatrical costumiers) and thinks the style of the clothes is European from sometime after 1900.
"Those chairs are certainly very numerous in the far north of Spain (where my wife is from) and southwestern France. They could be popular elsewhere, but I don't know. The cockerel is one of the symbols of France, particularly southwestern France, where rugby is a passion and the cockerel is a talisman for French rugby teams.
"So I'm going to put two and two together, and confidently declare an answer of 17.5. The image is of a young French boy, son of a smoking father who is a passionate Frenchman and rugby player. Taken in early 1903 in south western France, probably in Pau, sometime in the two weeks before Easter. The cockerel weighs a good twelve pounds, and will make a good Easter lunch, casserole, soup and sandwiches for the week after Easter."
Watson replies: What the deuce, it seems simple once you lay it out, Holmes. Splendid. So then—one down, 49 to go.
Only 49 are hard to explain.
#35 is a young Sarah Palin.
Posted by: Dennis | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 03:19 PM
Wonderful! Thank you.
Posted by: Bill Mitchell | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 03:22 PM
In addition to our 13 kids we have 60 chickens. I'm not sure but we might be outsisde the curve. : )
Posted by: Brian | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 03:29 PM
Superb surrealism. Made me smile. A lot.
Posted by: Steven House | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 03:50 PM
Mike,
Those buzfeed images remind me of the black and white photos on the Black and WTF site I mentioned in one of my posts. Apparently our photographic forefathers weren't so staid after all.
Posted by: Daniel Fealko | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 03:53 PM
"A collection of the most confusing/unexplainable photos from my Tumblr blog, Black & WTF."
Thanks a lot Mike. There goes my weekend!
Went to the Black & WTF site. There are 75
pages of hundreds of photos. The photos
are fascinating. Couldn't you wait 'till
March Madness was over? :)
Posted by: daugav369pils | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 03:54 PM
Great bunch of fun fotos -- have some of my own like them.
Are we afraid to create silly photo's like these.
Would make a great contest.
Posted by: Carl L | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 04:02 PM
"I don't think chickens are as common a part of everyday life for most people as they used to be."
...and apparently black bears...
Posted by: Scotto | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 04:35 PM
Mike you made my day. I especially love #32, the portrait with the diving suit. And perhaps I should be looking around for a skeleton.
Posted by: Robin Dreyer | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 08:15 PM
These photos prove that people have been cutting up in front of cameras ever since there were cameras. And that Grandma and Grandpa weren't nearly as stodgy as we thought.
Posted by: Peter Klein | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 09:13 PM
"Mike, Those buzfeed images remind me of the black and white photos on the Black and WTF site I mentioned in one of my posts."
Daniel,
Yes, that's where they're from (see fine print at Buzzfeed link.) I added that to the post.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 09:15 PM
Am I the only one who was more than a bit worried that an old photo from MY family might be there? Fortunately, I was able to take a deep breath and relax after checking out all 50 pics.
Posted by: Roberto M. | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 10:19 PM
Some strange images indeed.
Sort of reminds me of the American Gothic one from a few posts ago.
Posted by: Wayne Fox | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 10:44 PM
The first thing I thought was Halsman Dali. If you do a Google Image search on those terms: http://www.google.com/images?q=halsman+dali&biw=2560&bih=1251 you see what I mean.
Posted by: Maarten B. | Saturday, 19 March 2011 at 10:51 PM
#26, best of the bunch. Good quality shot and you have to appreciate the early version ATV attempt.
Posted by: MJFerron | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 01:19 AM
I just submitted one of my own. Let's see if it will make the cut.
After coming back from late wedding photo jobs in the early 1980s I used sit drinking in the window of the studio I worked in, which was in the nightclub area of Perth Western Australia, with a Nikkormat and Mecablitz on a tripod with a quick release and take shots of inebriated passers by. This drunk man with a cast threatened to break the window.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lazyaussie/466609823/
Posted by: The Lazy Aussie | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 01:52 AM
Number two looks suspiciously like the old custom of displaying the sheets after the wedding night. There was supposed to be blood on the sheets to prove that the bride was a virgin. OTOH, this looks more like an arterial wound...
Number 18 - looks like an offshoot of the memento mori (remember that you'll die) movement. You know, the guys who photographed the recently deceased. 19th century.
Nr. 23, or the first photo here, looks like a German on the Russian front in WWII, not WWI. Note the helmet.
Nr. 30 - "the tallest man in the world", from a circus. Most probably with "the shortest man in the world". Also most probably, taken by Georg Auger in 1905.
40 - the same guy, photoshopped. IE what was then used for photoshopping. :)
44 - a group of tuba players from Seattle in Snoqualmie Pass in 1938.
Nr. 46 looks like it depicts a concept. Somebody who has problems with maths, apparently.
BTW, the kids with cigarettes are apparently either photoshopped or the collage was done on film. Note the discrepancy between the cigarettes and the rest of the photos.
Posted by: erlik | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 04:30 AM
BTW, number 31 is apparently a (baby?) armadillo. Either "naturally" deformed or somebody used the head of a dolphin to create a photo-monster.
Posted by: erlik | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 04:43 AM
here are some quirky celebrity photos
http://www.thisisnotporn.net/
Posted by: C C Lee | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 05:16 AM
An image that has always puzzled me is this Cartier-Bresson shot:
http://www.radarzine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Henri-Cartier-Bresson-1.jpg
What on earth is going on??? ;-)
Posted by: Per Ofverbeck | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 06:01 AM
On the veiled matron wearing boxing gloves: She is not just veiled, she is grieving, probably the loss of her husband. If she was to wear a veil for another reason it would almost certainly not be a black veil, since in many parts of the world wearing something associated with grief outside of periods of grief is considered extremely unlucky.
The boxing gloves: In many places and times it was custom that those nearest to the departed were forbidden from doing any manual activity during the period of grief. And wearing boxing gloves will prevent you from doing anything at all.
Now, I'm of to look at the other 49 photos there really are some strange ones among them...
Posted by: Koert | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 06:03 AM
Oh, come on, no. 31 is signed by Dora Maar, and is is clearly a portrait of Picasso.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Chisholm | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 06:44 AM
Number 49 is easy. It's from the Overlook Hotel
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/sevenarts/cinema/shining1.jpg
Posted by: Sean | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 06:45 AM
#18 belongs in the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. ;)
Posted by: Tim | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 07:48 AM
Re: no. 35: Wasilla 2nd Grade yearbook, 1970?
Posted by: Jim McDermott | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 09:46 AM
Quite honestly, given the week I've had, I didn't think anything could make me laugh out loud, but number 12 did it. I'm not sure what that says about me, however, and it's probably something I don't want to explore too deeply.
Posted by: paul richardson | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 10:07 AM
Mike, as the kids would say...OMG! Thanks to you and Jay for finding this amazing collection. Initially, I was a bit intimidated by the thought of going through all 75 pages of the blog. Then I hit the link for the archive:
http://blackandwtf.tumblr.com/archive
Keep scrolling down and the page will fill with hundreds of photos like a mosaic. Each photo is a link to the original post.
And here I thought I'd get something practical done today.
Peter
Posted by: Peter Barber | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 11:38 AM
What is so strange about the photo of Eva Braun disguised as Al Jolson aka "Jazz Singer"? After all, she was a normal young woman who liked to enjoy herself. What's more, we know she used to work in a photographic studio and was an accomplished photographer.
Posted by: Anton Wilhelm Stolzing | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 12:46 PM
"I wonder how hard it would be to try to invent stuff like this?"
This reminded me of a remark Todd Papageorge made in an interview with Alec Soth:
"the IMAGINATION of the photographer ... is generally deficient compared to the mad swirling possibilities that our dear common world kicks up at us on a regular basis."
Posted by: Paul C. | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 03:47 PM
Mike,
having earlier posted a very tongue in cheek comment about a young boy and a cockerel, this view is from the polar opposite of that. I do agree that posting anything remotely to do with Adolf Hitler (your linked photo in the addendum) leaves you as a hostage to fortune, and risks taking your blog into very murky waters. You are the only arbiter of what goes on here on TOP, and I fully support that.
I'm also painfully aware that should you publish the paragraph below, I could also be accused (by those who read plain text through biased eyes) of some "sympathy" with a political philosophy that I feel a total anathema towards. In truth, I'm very proud to have served what I see as the cause of freedom through the last 15 years of the Cold War, and the first 7 or so difficult years of a new western view of "democratisation". I would have been so much more proud to have served, as my father and grandfather both did, in two hot and bloody wars against totalitarianism.
That off my chest, and forming a possibly ineffective shield, I think that Eva Braun is an interesting figure, both historically, and also within the niche of photography. It is academically fair to note that she had remarkably little influence on Hitler's views on just about anything, least of all the subjects of race and identity. Photographs of her and the few written records from the time before she met Hitler show an unusually unrestrained young girl - almost a flapper in the late 1920s/early 1930s. She was self-taught in photography, and is the photographer of much of Hitler's relaxation in the Bergdorf in the late 1930s. She also shot the colour films at the Bergdorf. There is little reliable or credible evidence that she had a great interest in politics, indeed the opposite is indicated in Goebbels and Speer's diaries in which she was noted as either a (modern vernacular) airhead or as being dismissed from the room when the men came to talk politics. Traudl Junge (Hitler's main secretary from 1944-45) makes similar points, while still professing to like her as a "funny person" and someone who enlivened what was a dismal atmosphere in the bunker in the last months.
All of that said, there is still something very disturbing at an image of a blacked up Eva Braun.
Posted by: James | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 05:49 PM
No. 8 may have been taken in Edinburgh. Until recently the zoo there took the penguins for a walk about every day. Not sure they still do but I remember it as the highlight of a visit in the seventies
Gavin
Posted by: Gavin McLelland | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 07:22 PM
#16, the girl with the umbrella and piggy bank:-
Everytime it rains it rains pennies from heaven.
Every time it rains, it rains, pennies from heaven
Don't you know each cloud contains pennies from heaven?
You'll find your fortune's fallin' all over the town
Make sure that your umbrella is upside down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6JpaEq60ok
Posted by: phil martin | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 07:31 AM
Mike Chisholm:
:)
No, it's Pere Ubu. It's apparently not deformed.
Posted by: erlik | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 05:22 PM