Friday, March 04, 2016

We Never Put A Healthy Photo Down (Or Indeed An Unhealthy One)


The kind of donkey sanctuary - cum - shelter for arthritic Rottweilers that the Good Lady Wife is apt to donate our meagre weekly food budget to, often have slogans such as "we never put a healthy animal down". 

I have a similar approach to old photographs except in my case the love and care I am prepared to offer extends to photographs that have seen better days. The closer to terminal decline they are, the more I like them and the more I enjoy digitally stitching them back together. 

The other day I spotted a collection of old photographs of unknown people "in very poor condition" advertised on eBay and I knew it was for me. I bought it for less than a song, but my image-loving heart has been singing since. 



As usual, I have no idea who these people are, where they were or when they were doing whatever they were doing. But now that my digital repair brush has brushed up against their lives I feel I know them like old friends. They are safe with me - I will never have them put down.

3 comments:

  1. Early version of Once Upon a Time in the West, and Bonnie & Clyde (with Bonnie's mum)...

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  2. Had Chairman Bill not gone first, I doubt I would comment, but now I can. In the style of the time both women are wearing corsets. Corsets were the second garment of the day in dressing, the first being the chemise or camisole that was the cloth covering of breasts. Next corset, then underpants over the corset (or no underpants, depending on the woman's preference for quick toileting), then stockings, a slip, etc. I used to watch my grandmother in wonder performing the ritual. I recognize these women as framed up identically. The war years freed my mother from her corset, and she looked so modern to me, in comparison to my grandmother.

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  3. A corset but no undies?

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