Every now and again I come across a photograph that I want to purchase. I have several themes that I focus on but now and again I come across a photo that I just like for one reason or another. Here are a few recent additions.

A dancer. The woman in the photo reminds me of my partner in so many ways. The hat. The boots. The dramatic pose. The fancy costume. My partner sometimes goes grocery shopping in a 1960s majorette dress, black with bands of gold fringe. I bought this photo from the same seller as the Cheryl photo below. The print has been cut into an oval shape, 6.5×8.5 inches, and is dated 1927 on the back.

Cheryl. I’m not sure how to date this. The seller was disposing of a collection of studio photographs that ranged in date from the later 1920s into the 1950s. A guess would be 1930s. The print is 4.12×6.25 inches without border. The table/platform with the name seems to indicate an act that appeared on stage.

Fish Face. I believe this photo dates to the 1940s. It’s a 5×7 inch print and is of a pretty woman having fun.

This print popped up on EBay recently and captured my eye. It has much of the feel of a Guyette photo but isn’t a Guyette photo. The model’s costuming and pose are subtle. The table she is sitting on doesn’t appear in Guyette photographs that I have seen. If she were costumed just a little differently . . . Anyway, the photograph appears to have been taken in the 1930s. The print is 7.5×12.4 cm in size with borders.

Photography is much more than just taking a picture. The lens doesn’t just see what is before it. This is especially true for film photography. What a camera does is capture reflected light. Studio lighting allows the photographer to play with reflected light. This small group of 8×10 inch prints shows what can be done.

This photo was taken around 1950, maybe a little earlier. The lighting brings out the melody of textures. This looks like a Hollywood promotional photograph but there is nothing on the back of the print to indicate its purpose.

This and the next photo are of band leader Jeanne Carroll. The photos were taken in the 1950s and were used to promote the band/conductor. The photographer’s name isn’t clear but appears to be Maurice Seymour of Chicago. Compared to the first picture, this photo is a sharp contrast of black and white with fewer middle tones.

A portrait requires less sharp contrast where light is used to model the forms creating a three dimensional representation.

Floral backgrounds were sometimes used for backgrounds for female nudes in the 1940s. Most studio photographs in the same period had austere or formal backgrounds. The floral backgrounds for these photographs lends an air of the exotic.

This photograph is circa 1940 and when one pops up in the marketplace it is often associated with WWII vintage uniforms and other personal items from former Navy personnel. The First Strange Place: Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii by Beth Bailey and David Farber has a photo of service members looking at nude photos in a Hotel Street shop. This part of Honolulu was the brothel district. Women in the brothels were expected to have sex with at least a hundred men a day, if the three minutes allotted for each john can be called sex. The image size is 7.2×11 cm.

A postcard postmarked 1940 with a model and floral background. United States.

A slightly out of focus amateur pinup with the woman posed in front of a floral print bedspread. 1940s, United States, 6×9 cm image size. The best amateur photos of this sort were taken by Eugene von Bruenchenhein, a Wisconsin folk artist, whose prints of shots, some nude, of his wife with floral backgrounds are highly sought after.

My collecting focuses on photographs taken after 1930 in the United States. Earlier photographs taken on the east and west coasts have a special quality in that many were taken outdoors. Many of these photographs of female models follow tropes found in art. These photographs were not reproduced in vast quantities like the female nude photographs taken in the 1950s.

Outdoor nude postcards, New York, circa 1920. I wish I knew more about AAB Company and the creators of their postcards. Similar style photographs were produced in California by Alta Studios.

Arts Beautiful magazine, 1920s. This is packed away and all I have readily available is the scan of the cover and one interior page. The cover is possibly an Alta Studios photograph. The interior photograph is Alta Studios of California.

Mack Sennett postcards, Los Angeles, circa 1917. Sennett is an important early film maker. I am not sure if she is one of his bathing beauties from his popular film shorts or if this scene and actress is associated with one of his feature films.