Category: photography

Categories
Dance photography Social history

Vintage Dancing Girls: The Expressionists

Above is an example of what I call “The Expressionists” for want of a better term. Obviously these groups of dancers are trying to convey something but it isn’t always obvious what they want to say. As often as not there’s no information on the cards to help.

I can tell you that this card comes from an album featuring Raybury School of Dancing Folkstone, Maidstone and Athelston School. Dated in the 1930s but what it’s about I don’t know. A scene from an opera perhaps?

And this one’s from from an album of photographs and clippings related to ballet in Weymouth during the 1950s and 1960s. I guess they are posing for a photographer while warming up.

I call this one “The Dying Swan.” You can often come across variations of this type.

Another mystery. Representing some sort of myth?

Obviously a ritual to welcome the spring I’d argue!

Ah, must be the dance of the birdhouse!

Homage to the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Variations on the circle dance are also popular.

Any suggestions on the real subjects of these dances welcome.

Categories
Music Hall photography

Violet Lorraine

“So often it’s hard or impossible to find out anything about music hall performers who appear on Real Photographic Post Cards. In the case of Violet Lorraine there’s a fair amount of material to be found. Wikipedia tells us:

She was born Violet Mary Tipton in Kentish Town, London, in 1886 and went on the stage as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen. Her rise to fame came in April 1916 at the Alhambra Theatre in the musical/revue The Bing Boys Are Here. She was given the leading female part, Emma, opposite George Robey playing Lucius Bing. It became one of the most popular musicals of the World War I era. She retired from the stage on her marriage on 22 September 1921 to Edward Raylton Joicey MC (1890–1955) and they had two sons, John and Richard. She returned to acting for the screen, appearing in Britannia of Billingsgate (1933), a musical based on the play of the same name by Christine Jope-Slade and Sewell Stokes, followed by Road House in 1934.

Violet Mary Joicey died in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1956, eight days short of her seventieth birthday.”

Further information can be seen in this article from an old magazine:

Violet was famous for singing “If you were the only girl in the world” with George Robey. You can hear her singing if you search her name on Youtube.

I’ve shown the RPPCs in my collection but there are lots more out there.

Finally, and I don’t know whether to believe this, the John Peel Wiki claims that he played played her track, ‘When We’ve Wound Up The Watch On The Rhine’ on his radio show.

Categories
Dance photography Social history

Vintage Dancing Girls: Couples

Vintage dancing girls come in many different configurations from solo dancers (some just posing), troupes professional and amateur, old, young and sometimes not even girls as you will see below. That diversity is what struck me about this genre of RPPCs and photographs when I began this collection. I’ll be posting some examples of the different types of dancing girls in the future but I’m starting with a few of the couples from the first 100 items in my flickr album.

So clearly this dancing girl on the left is a man. One of the intriguing things about collecting old photographs and postcards – irrespective of the gender of the participants, you have to ask “What on earth were they thinking of when they did this?”

I think it’s safe to say this is two women. The studio is Stahl Studio, 1221 N. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA.
I’m guessing 1920s from the looks and clothing.

Colourised postcards were very popular. Curiously only the dancer to the right has her dress colourised though it’s possible the other dress was too but the colour has faded.

Ideal Studios. Written on back “Myrtle The Witch Marjorie Fairy Bluebell School Play London St Martins School 1921.” It’s always a bonus to have details such as date, names, studios, locations.

The second photo is also by Ideal Studios Oxford St. Written on back ” Myrtle and Marjorie Dancing Display.”

Musical theatre type outfits are popular though Jazz hands not so much.

A more candid photograph in contrast to the more usual and obviously posed ones. There’s nothing to identify the dancers but from their clothes I’d guess late 1950s or early 1960s.

Again nothing to identify these two. This was image 100 in the collection in 2016. The album was started in 2012 and is, of course, still ongoing.

Categories
photography

Keep watching the skies

Some recent shots of sunset over Dene Quarry, Cromford. We often have spectacular sunsets over the quarry and all I have to do is walk out onto the patio and take the photograph. Sometimes the colours look unreal or manipulated but they are just as taken in camera.

If I turn 90 degrees to the left and walk to the end of my drive I can catch the skies in the direction of Black Rocks, a local beauty spot.

Categories
Edwardian photography Social history

A typical morning at Home

I’ve always got several projects on the go. These postcards of a ballerina were dated September 1914 at Bexhill-on-Sea. They’re the latest addition to my collection of vintage dancing girls, a project running for over 10 years now and amounting to 563 entries. My recent article on this collection in the British Music Hall Society‘s magazine only scratched the surface and there’s much more to come.

I’m still experimenting with pictorialism as a style so here’s the view through the gate and down the lane.

Speaking of views from the house here’s a recent sunset. From the front of the house I look west over the local quarry and there are often spectacular sunsets.

All sorts of ephemera turn up when collecting old photographs, like this knitting pattern. I have a theory that these old patterns will become ever more collectable, not for the patterns themselves but for the photographs on the covers. The amount of activity around knitting patterns on Ebay seems to support this idea.

After a hard morning processing scans and photographs it’s time to relax in the garden and here’s Gnasher finding some shade.

And here’s two of our local squirrels cleaning up seeds that have fallen from the bird feeder.

It’s a hard life!

Categories
photography Social history

Ruth 1960s Model

Ruth Wells was evidently a 1960s model and most of the photographs I have of her were clearly taken by a professional, although there are some amateur ones too. One photo has on the back “Height 5’5” Bust 34” Waist 24” Hips 35” Hair Dark Brown Brown Eyes.” Some of the photos are stamped ”Newnes and Pearsons” on the reverse who I believe published many popular magazines. There’s not much else on the back of the photos but one has handwritten “Taken for Women’s Own about 3 years ago.” I have 70+ photos of her including clippings from magazines.

I’ve taken a good number of photos from contact prints and done some minimal restoration. Above is one of the sheets plus I’ve enlarged a couple of cells which have been marked up for cropping and removing blemishes which someone would have had to do old school style, long before computer retouching. There’s nothing new about retouching, just faster and easier ways to do it.

She looks the part for someone who would appear in popular magazines of the time and would appeal to the general audience rather than just the swinging 60s crowd.

She looks wholesome even in the swimsuit shots!

Once again I am astonished at how collections like this just get thrown out or end up in house clearances. These photos are a lovely glimpse into a piece of social history as well as coming from someone’s private collection. There’s more personal information including wedding photographs which I haven’t included here or on my Flickr feed. We worry about privacy in the digital age but the information in some of the newspaper clippings I have on Ruth even give the address of where the married couple were going to live.

Categories
occult photography spooky

Scary Dolls, Haunted Dolls

So I was listening to an episode of the loopholes podcast when they began discussing haunted dolls. Though I often find old photos of dolls creepy I never realised there was a whole sub-culture invested in haunted dolls. Indeed I was astonished to find a search for “haunted dolls” on Ebay came up with 1600 such dolls for sale. These dolls came with detailed histories of when and where they came from, what their powers were and so on. Cue a discussion with my wife about buying old dolls at car boot sales and making up stories for them before selling them on ebay.

This angry child from my cabinet card collection would be a good basis for a story. Now where can I find a doll that looks like hers?

This girl and her doll look particularly spooky don’t you think?

This doll has such powers it needs six girls to restrain it.

Now this photograph, and it is a photograph not a postcard, has real potential. The Ebay seller I bought this from suggested it could be a post mortem photograph, a “popular” thing to take in Victorian times and commanding high prices for good examples from collectors today.

Ultimately I don’t think this a PM photo even though the Girl’s eyes seem to have been painted on. The doll though – now that’s a different matter.

I don’t really believe in haunted dolls though, after watching a Youtube video of twenty haunted dolls, I noticed the comments were mostly people apologising to the dolls for looking at them without permission. I didn’t apologise so if you don’t hear from me again you’ll know why.

Categories
photography

Pictorialism revisited

In general I take photographs with a treatment in mind. So if I want a pictorialist style photo I take a “normal” raw photograph with a result in mind. What if I looked at some of my older photographs and gave them a pictorialist makeover?

The photograph above was originally taken as a full-colour shot of fields near the village of Reeth. I think this new treatment gives it a dreamy look as if from a different time. It won’t be to everyone’s taste but I like it.

Two photos of Arabella given a Stieglitz style makeover. I’m also influenced by Gavin Seim’s theory of “shadow hacking.”

I gave this photo of ballerina Erica Mulkern the pictorialist treatment and then a mild (digital) cyanotype wash.

Arabella again, this time with a Stieglitz treatment but then converted to black and white.

Categories
Dance photography

Jessie Mathews, the Dancing Divinity

Jessie Mathews was a very popular dancer/singer/actress of the 1930s in the UK. Dirk Bogarde said she was a much better dancer than Ginger Rogers and I think he was right though her style was different. A collaboration between Jessie and Fred Astaire was planned but Jessie’s UK work schedule would not allow it to proceed. One of her choreographers was Buddy Bradley who was an influence on Busby Berkeley.

Jessie was a dancer on stage long before she became a film star and had been a professional dancer since the age of 12. She was often referred to as The Dancing Divinity.

Just like stars before and after her time she was featured on many postcards which have become very collectable.

She was a very versatile dancer able to cover all styles from modern ballet to tap, jazz and expressive.

Jessie was also regularly featured in film magazines of the 1930s.

Original photographs of Jessie often sell for in excess of £100 though I was lucky to obtain this 8/10 original for much less. On ebay some sellers present photos of her as if they were original prints though they are clearly reproductions. This is a common problem to avoid for any collector of such material.

Like today the studios were keen to place stills of their stars in magazines at every opportunity. Such clippings are also collectable.

Luckily many of Jessie’s films are available on DVD and they are sometimes shown on Talking Pictures TV though I don’t recollect seeing them elsewhere. If you like Fred and Ginger I’m sure you’ll enjoy her films.

Long after her film and stage careers were over Jessie found fame as Mary Dale in Mrs Dale’s Diaries on the radio after replacing the original Mrs Dale played by Ellis Powell. She was featured on This Is Your Life in 1961. She died in 1981.

Categories
Colors photography

My Evil Doppleganger

It’s not happened recently but I’ve been plagued by my doppleganger for many years. People have offered to fight me in pubs because I denied knowing them – it must have been my double they met before. Even my mother met my doppleganger in her house though I was miles away at the time.

From time to time I’ve imagined my evil twin and what he might be capable of doing.

I’ll probably be arrested or banned for including the knife in this picture but remember it’s in the hand of my evil twin, not me.

It’s dangerous around my house.

This one was inspired by Park Chan-wook’s film Thirst.

Seriously though, creating these images in Photoshop is fairly easy to do using layers. I’ve still got at least one doppleganger out there but I can’t say whether they’re really evil or not.