A quick, fun set! I don't have a tremendous amount of context for these photographs, which come from what appear to be two sets, in a collection held by a small Ontario museum. In one set, a bunch of male and female friends play around with bicycles, bonnets, and occasional musical instruments. In the other, a group of five fellows adopt silly poses in swimsuits, some of which are women's suits. All are taken in 1897, in Huron County, Ontario, by a professional photographer. What, exactly, is the story? Who knows, but they're great.
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| Huron County Museum |
Bicycles, instruments, bonnets... Source
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| Huron County Museum |
Posing on Lake Huron. Source
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| Huron County Museum |
A pile of friends and instruments in the park. Source
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| Huron County Museum |
A relatively normal staged group portrait with bicycles, except for the guy already wearing a bonnet. Source
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| Huron County Museum |
An elabourately stage "bicycle accident." Source
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| Huron County Museum |
The men play on a clay bluff, in bathing suits (still including one or two that are women's...) Source
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| Huron County Museum |
Posing on the beach (showing off the swim dress to full effect!). Source
3 comments:
These photos are fun to look at.
There's so much life in them!
They are certainly having fun!
Those are great! It's a pity there's nothing known about the context though. These are the kind of images any group of friends on a wild holiday might be inclined to make but in a time when photography involved large, clumsy cameras, lengthy exposure times and required direct access to a darkroom, they can't have been as spontaneous as that. Was this group of friends so wealthy and in love with their care-free lifestyle that they payed a professional photographer to follow them around and take these pictures? Are they, maybe, a theatre troupe staging more original pictures for a press release? Or are they the photographer's friends, sport enough to help him create a portfolio to set himself up as the nr. 1 chronicler of fun and games?
We'll never know of course, but images like this make it fun to speculate.
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