Sepia Saturday 566 - The artifices of photography.

 

Well you have me this week. No photos of the rooms in any of the houses in my collection. What a shame. I would love to have seen inside the houses of my ancestors. On my father's side they would have been quite grand, I think. On my mother's side less so.

However as I was browsing through my old photos, something did catch my eye and that was the backgrounds and props that the photographers of the time used. Most old photos - at least in my family archives - were taken by professional photographers as privately owned cameras were very rare in the old days. I am amazed at how many professional photographers there seem to have been just in my home city of Adelaide. Anyway that is my theme this week - Backgrounds and props used by the photographers of old. 

Let's look at some of the furniture - there always seem to be chairs of some sort, even if they were only to lean on.  Here we have several cane chairs - and a fur rug - also commonly used. These children are some of my mother's cousins, taken around 1896

Speaking of furs. This little chap is cuddling up to a shaggy fur. Like many of the photos in my old album, these children are un-named. not family, but friends, I suspect. Who knows?

This velvet buttoned chair appears in a number of family shots. One of these young ladies is Olga Ernst, who became a well known children's author in Australia. A  second cousin twice removed??? Very obscure, but I am claiming her!!

My maternal Great Great Grandparents - I would die for a cane chair like that one. Interesting that the chair only has one arm as does the other chair. 

And then there were the other types of furniture like this toy horse and carriage.

Or this three-wheeled wheel chair

Then there was often something ornate to lean on - probably needed because they had to stand still for so long. Either an elegant one like this one 

Or something more rustic and (dare I say it in these days of political correctness?) more masculine.

Which brings me to the backdrops, like this rustic archway  in a garden setting

Or this one which really makes me giggle - My great great grandmother with her daughter and grand children (Olga Ernst again). A fake drawing room background.

I do have one more photo - a very very old one taken in Germany some time before anyone ever thought of coming to Australia. I'm not sure if it is even a photo? I am sure someone can enlighten me. This is of my great great grandparents Dr. Carl August Heyne and his wife Marianne. This image was possibly taken well before 1840, the year in which he died. There is a baby here and I know they had three children, my great grandfather being born in 1825, so this photo could be even older than 1840.

This photo does show the interior of a house.

That's it for me. If you want to see how the rest of the gang interpreted the theme head over to 

SEPIA SATURDAY

Liz Needle