While I am a little bit of a late-comer to Sepia Saturday, it’s pretty impressive that they’ve had 250 Saturdays of prompts! Joining in on the fun has been great for me – it keeps me actively blogging and actively working on the thousands of photos in the collection. I’m not kidding, thousands. I really need to get together a post on the entirety of the big trunk one of these days because it’s SUCH a gem, but that’s something for another post. Today I’ve decided to explore hand-coloring to fit in with the theme.
Nov 6.
Mrs. Alfred Powis
Blaine City, PA
Bust of both 20×16. Hair both golden light. Eyes blush gray. Very fair complexion. Cheeks pink. White waists. Little boys coat blue, largest boy coat gray trimmed with brown. Don’t have largest boys looking down much and make face angle & light.
It’s probably not a perfect transcription of the very faded pencil on the back, and the initials at the bottom “WH” don’t match the photographer. Instead of a photographic reprint, perhaps their mother was having painted or artistic renderings done from the photo. I never have found the reproductions made from this photo, but it’s neat to be able to see what the colors of their jackets were in the written record.
Here’s the hand-colred image! This is of my grandmother, Norma Innocenti probably when she was about 15, so around 1936. The colors used seem to be blue, pink, and green – pretty simple, but I’m sure it was an expense when times were difficult, to have an image reprinted and hand-colored. There are so few photos of my grandmother when she was young since that side of the family wasn’t big into pictures. Check out those shoes with the striped socks and printed dress! I love it! None of the other photos from this side of the family are colored in like this, so the photo is rather unique. I’m told that there were never photos hanging on the wall or anywhere in the house while my grandmother was growing up. It just wasn’t something they did. Compare that to the family for the boys above that comes with thousands of photos, and my collection is REALLY lopsided. However, that means that the few photos we do have from my grandmother’s family are extra special.
It’s interesting about the old tinted photos how some parts are tinted, but other’s are not. Obviously a degree of skill was needed to do a good job. I wonder what those artists would think about how easy it is to tint things now using computers?!!
The side with all the photos must have been a family of better means than your grandmothers. My grand nieces and nephews have had thousands of pictures taken of them. They both even though they are still youngsters have a “pose” they automatically assume when the cell phones come out. I’m not sure it’s a good thing. I love both these photos but the one of the boys is hilarious. They look uncomfortable, tired and really irritated – just like active boys forced to stand still for a few minutes. I’m betting the taller boy hated wearing that jacket and bowtie.
The picture of your grandmother is rather charming, & I agree those socks are something else! But I love the photo of the two boys – though it seems, perhaps, the younger one should have had the shorter stick & vice versa. Oh well . . .
The picture of your grandmother is delightful.
Special in so many ways it seems. Wonderful to have the actual instructions and colours.
It’s interesting to see the notation for the image…I wonder if the person who did the colouring was someone other than the photographer, and it’s logical when you think about it that they’d need an aide memoir about what colours people were wearing. I think this is very special to have since it illustrates (pardon the pun) the process.