Happy Holidays!

Learning to Swim

New to Past Pictures

Selection of wrestling and strong man photos from Anonymous Works

Anonymous Works has selected a bunch of images of "Wrestling & Physical Culture" found and available through West Coast Memorabilia...

pregnant elf

white mask

otherworldly...

available on my eBay page

book list

Started a book list in the nav column....

1960 JFK Christmas

A handful of new arrivals at Past Pictures including this great snapshot image of the not yet inaugurated John F. Kennedy pinned to a Christmas tree...

The History of Visual Communication

A comprehensive survey of the History of Visual Communication in 10 chapters...

excerpts:

This website, which contains the material of the course VA312, taught at Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey; attempts to walk you through the long and diverse history of a particular aspect of human endeavour: The translation of ideas, stories and concepts that are largely textual and/or word based into a visual format, i.e. visual communication.

Visual communication is the communication of ideas through the visual display of information. Primarily associated with two dimensional images, it includes: art, signs, photography, typography, drawing fundamentals, colour and electronic resources. Recent research in the field has focused on web design and graphically oriented usability. It is part of what a graphic designer does to communicate visually with the audience.

from the chapter: Breaking the Grid

The Daguerreotype proved popular in responding to the demand for portraiture emerging from the middle classes during the Industrial Revolution. This demand, that could not be met in volume and in cost by oil painting, added to the push for the development of photography. Daguerreotypes, while beautiful, were fragile and difficult to copy. A single photograph taken in a portrait studio could cost USD $1,000 in 2006 dollars. In 1884 George Eastman developed film, to replace the photographic plate so that a photographer no longer needed to carry boxes of plates and toxic chemicals around. In July of 1888 Eastman's Kodak camera went on the market with the slogan "You press the button, we do the rest". Now anyone could take a photograph and leave the complex parts of the process to others, and photography became available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of Kodak Brownie.

Interview with Robert E. Jackson, Photo Collector

A Fluid and Expressive Medium: Interview with Robert E. Jackson
by Michelle Hauser of the Design Observer

In recent years, a new breed of photographer has emerged: the camera-less photographer. This new generation — many of whom self-identify as collectors — has reinvented the process once again: theirs is a practice which might be best characterized as hunting, appropriating and editing to obtain a certain kind of image. Such idiosyncratic makers/collectors have evolved as a sub-genre within the ranks of the amateur, whose collective output has spawned a revolution in the creation of a kind of new, tactile imagery. Without fanfare and well beyond the purview of what most people believe constitutes an artist, this new pioneering practice creates from an already existing body of work.

Excerpt:

MH: Do you ever feel like you are collaborating with whoever took the snapshot, or is it yours now entirely?

REJ: These snapshots now exist in my collection without the weight of any of the narrative import that accompanied the taking of the photo. I am interested in the formal aesthetic qualities of the photo and have no interest in trying to place when and where it was taken. Or what the photo meant to express or record. What is important now is what it means to me and how it might fit within a larger typological framework.

Full interview here
12 image slide show here

I Love That Photo

ILOVETHATPHOTO is an online photography magazine

What moves independent photographers? What inspires them? What influences them? What does photography mean to them?ILOVETHATPHOTO tries to seek answers to these questions and shows the best work of independent photographers. We give photographers the opportunity to display their work on our site. This comes with a short interview and information about the photographer.

short interview about the Past Pictures website on ILOVETHATPHOTO

annals of aviation

a great slide show from Square America " The Annals of Aviation"

logo on real photo postcard lettering

My friend, Kate Widdows, made the logo lettering for Past Pictures based on an idea that came up in conversation. She writes about it on her Eye Contact tumblr blog... I've always loved the outlined lettering and stamp boxes on the backs of the RPPC and happy with this solution - thanks Kate!

"It's a good trick if you can do it"

man framed in car window

o.k.