Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I spent yesterday starting a big end of summer clean up of the apartment which sorely needs it. Kim pitched in and we had a reasonable day one cleaning, more to come today. I’d say I cleared about a third of what I need to off my desk, and in the process coughed up these two photos which are an interesting segue from yesterday’s post (it can be found here for those who missed it) and these make me wonder about my attraction to a similar composition of sorts. I know I purchased them online, however I do not remember who I bought them from so apologies to one of my sellers out there.

Unlike yesterday’s tintype, these are mounted cabinet cards and while yesterday’s ladies were seated in front of a faux landscape, today’s women are obviously really outside in front of this lovely house with a deep porch and that great striped awning. And of course, they are very much together in these photos unlike our ladies who turned away from each other yesterday.

The house is really the star here for me. The shadows from the trees make it clear that it is a shady, cool spot and the enormous overgrown boxes of ivy are so welcoming. The textures and patterns are amazing in this photo. There’s the horizontal siding on the house, the stripes in the awning, that jolly lattice work under the porch and an especially interesting design on the railing, all helping to make this more interesting. Taking that thought a bit further if you look at the top of the house the siding switches to a decorative wavy design (my neighbors in New Jersey have some mermaid style bits at the top of their house I love) and the closed shutters create something more interest for the eye too. Finally a careful look also reveals that the top of each of the porch columns has a decorative design.

The front door is an old fashioned (to us) double door – two glass paneled doors which I guess you could slip into half or open fully. Light is hitting the door and the window to the (our) left of it and shining brightly. The lawn around the women is grassy but littered with some leaves and those are what our eye really sees. There is a blurb of light and chemicals perhaps at the bottom of the phot which in no way takes away from it. (It is also where the photo starts to go out of focus as the lens of the day may have.) The photo is slightly underdeveloped in the printing and there is something else about the chemicals which has left tiny dots on the surface in places.

Finally, the two women are seated facing each other, one in a wooden rocking chair and the other in what appears to be a straight back chair – I assume these were likely taken from where they resided the porch; a careful look shows these chairs have twisty wicker backs. The woman on (our) right is somewhat younger and they wear their hair gathered in the same top knot. Their dark skirts and white blouses are also virtually identical. The older woman has a small purse in her lap.

Moving to the other photo, we’re on the steps of the house. We’re closer to the front of the house and are on the stairs. The woman in the middle is the same older woman from the other picture but now she has these two different women in white on either side of her and, although it took a bit for me to see him, a man seated in a chair behind them – sort of there and not there at the same time.

The plants that I took for ivy at a distance actually appear to be enormous geraniums – or maybe geraniums and ivy or another trailing vine in these planters. (I too have geraniums – much smaller – on either side of my door in New Jersey.) The steps are old and sort of just this side of in need of repair. The striped awning in both photos is a bit askew upwards. The second photo is evidence that it rolled up unevenly rather than maybe blowing in a breeze.

The people in this photo are very centered although the railings to the house are a bit off the middle. The woman on the right seems to be a bit older. She holds a metal bucket with a top. I don’t know why but I think of it as the sort of thing you would have gathered berries in. The other woman, younger than both of the others by at least a little, is holding something I cannot identify – it is long and perhaps is metal. She holds it in one hand and something else in the other. If I make a wild guess I would say it is chimes of some sort?

The woman in the middle is the woman from the first photo. A very careful look reveals that she now has a man’s flat cap rakishly placed on her head. Her feet which we now see are in the leather boot-shoes of the day. Behind them is the man I mentioned, older, beard and mustache, seated. He wears a deep hat which sits to the side on his head. Close inspection shows this to be a sort of fun set up although no one is cracking a smile here.

These photos are faded and I imagine they spent time up or out somewhere over a long period of time. The gray cardboard they are glued onto has faded as well. There are no notes on the back about who this family is or when they were taken. When that happens I always imagine that the people were so central to the lives of those who had the photos that they couldn’t imagine not knowing who they are.

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Happy holiday weekend to you all! Next week, on Thursday, Kim and I depart for four days in Bethesda. He has a bunch of book signings and the SPX con, but also he will give a talk at the Library of Congress on Friday afternoon. (Let me know if you are in the area and would like information!) I hope to still log in for some sort of blog post but we’ll see what I can manage!