For everything there is a season and it just so happens that the season for producing enough 2017 calendars to fill the Christmas stockings of a range of friends and family members is the last week in November (especially if you are a tight-fisted Yorkshire chap and want to take advantage of the Black Friday deals from the digital publishers). That is the reason why my various blogs have been neglected for the last couple of weeks. Now the calendars are designed and the orders have been submitted, so I have time to return to the pressing business of the pointless and inconsequential.
And what can be more inconsequential that old photographs of unknown people. Here are two old photographs I bought from the same second-hand stall. I have no idea who either group are or where they were when they had their photographs taken. Quite clearly, they inhabited different levels of the Victorian or Edwardian social spectrum - but I suspect that the photographs were taken at around the same time.
Other than that, they are not related in any way. But they have most probably sat next to each other in the box on the counter of the second-hand shop for years. Maybe they had time to get acquainted, to share experiences, to swap hopes and fears. Their pigments faded and their corners got creased and folded, but they would eventually share a season in the sun.
I enjoyed studying the individual faces of these ladies. The younger ones have some interesting hairstyles, especially the girl in the second row back, two from right. There’s an extremely pretty young lady on the back row of the other one (third from right) and I wonder what the corsages indicate.
ReplyDeleteI don't care for the hairstyles in the picture below, can't help thinking how uncomfortable it must have been having all your hair piled up on the top of your head like that in hot weather! Still I suppose it saved wearing a hat in cold weather.....
ReplyDeleteWith a sculptor’s eye for classical facial beauty, three girls in the sepia photograph win hands down: back row, third from left; second row from back, far left; third row from back, far right. The ladies in the second photograph leave me cold. Perhaps that is why painters and sculptors prefer shop girls as models.
ReplyDeleteWhat is fascinating is how a group of different people with different frames of reference can look at the same group photograph and identify different things - each as fascinating as the other for a variety of reasons.
ReplyDeleteCould the bottom photo be some of the girls from the top photo? I can see similarities.
ReplyDeleteThe little girl at the front of the b/w photo has star quality and doesn't she know it?
ReplyDeleteAnd I absolutely agree with Roger's first 2 choices.