Snapshot Notes Part 1
1888-1919
The snapshot was born with the hand-held camera, the most popular being the Kodak, introduced in 1888. In this article we are going to explore the first 32 years of snapshots, and look at how their appearance gives clues to their age. In subsequent articles we will look at some of the later developments in this genre.
The hand-held camera broke the near-monopoly professional photographers held on the art and science of photography up to that time. Yes, there had always been amateur photographers, but they had to be very dedicated to their hobby to learn how to manipulate the large and expensive camera, and complex chemical development process. These early amateurs were few in number, and their work often rivaled that of professionals.
When the Eastman company introduced the Kodak, all that changed. You could buy a camera for $25, and it came loaded with enough film for 100 photographs. Then, when those were taken, you simply sent the camera back to the company, and they did the developing and printing, and reloaded your camera with fresh film. By 1892 the Eastman Company became Eastman Kodak, and they continued to offer cameras with more and more improvements at an ever widening range of prices. In 1900 they introduced the Brownie for just $1, and ever since almost every family in America has owned at least one camera, and a drawer full of snapshots.
Cameo and Pseudo-Cameo
Presenting photographic images in an oval shape was popular from the beginning of photography. In our dated image collection, about 40% of all cased images have oval mats. Since more elaborate shapes became available as time went on, one would think the simple oval would lose popularity — but in fact it was just the opposite, they represented a larger percentage of cased images as time went on.
But the subject of this article is not that kind of oval, but one found over a restricted time period on cart-de-visite’s. We have seen this style on cabinet cards, but only very rarely. Darrah described the cameo style, and we call similar appearing cards that are not embossed pseudo-cameos. This is not the same as the soft-edged vignettes that were popular from the 1860s on. Those are so widespread as to have no value as a clue to dating.
Nor should the cameo or pseudo-cameo be confused with oval-cut images. In oval-cut images, the paper print is cut into an oval shape, then mounted on a cardboard backing. The cameo or pseudo-cameo has a rectangular paper print mounted on the typical CDV card, but the background behind the subject is oval in shape, with a sharp boarder, while the rest of the print has another shade, occasionally darker but most often lighter than that surrounding the subject. The subject is almost always a single portrait, head and shoulders style. Some are true cameo prints, that is the oval area has been embossed so that it is slightly convex — but the style was more frequently seen on flat cards.
The Dividing Line
The dividing line is a thick, decorative line across the front of a cabinet card that divides the space in two, the large upper part for the image, and a small lower section for the photographer’s imprint. I first noticed this style of imprint on a card by a railroad photographer, and the line resembled a train track. I considered calling it the track line, but since that is just one of many styles, I thought it might be confusing. We wouldn’t want to end up on the wrong side of the tracks.
The dividing line almost always goes all the way across the card, from side to side, but a few types have curlicue ends and stop just short of the side. It is never a single line, but is typically two parallel lines, or sometimes more, with decorative lines or shapes between the two thin lines. Or the ‘lines’ may be made up of repeating patterns, rather than simple lines. Most dividing lines are about one-fourth inch wide. They are almost always found on cabinet cards, occasionally on larger formats — I have never seen one on a CDV or other small format print. (Not to say they don’t exist, it seems the variety of photograph mounts is never-ending.)
Below you will see illustrations of some typical dividing lines, and we will discuss their temporal distribution, with about 70% of the observed occurrences in just a four year period. We will also discuss the frequency with which this feature is seen on cards for those years, and discuss where they were typically found — this feature has unique spatial as well as temporal characteristics.
The Double Line
Usually characterized as an 1860s feature (though we found several instances from the early 1870s), the double line around the print area of a CDV is most often gilt, but may be colored ink. Here is what Darrah had to say about this feature in his Cartes de Visite book:
By mid 1861 a variety of mounts were available commercially. The plain white card was soon decorated by a border, commonly of single or double gilt lines. Sometimes these lines form a design in the corners. Occasionally these lines were printed in red, blue, green, purple, magenta or black — named in order of frequence. This type of card mount was used throughout the 1860s, but faced considerable competition from other types of mounts after 1866.
Our study differs from Darrah’s impressions on several points, plus we see a distinct peak in popularity that is of some interest. As usual, we also look at how frequent the feature is in relation to cards not having this feature.
Wide Crossed Neck Ribbons
Nineteenth century women loved to wear ribbons — in their hats and hair, around their necks and waists, or just tied in a bow and fixed to their dress. So we have no shortage of images showing women wearing ribbons. But there were fashions in just how a ribbon was to be worn, and what type of ribbon it should be — wide or narrow, plain or patterned, light or dark.
The ribbons were often of silk, and as such were relatively expensive. Skimping on the width or length of a ribbon might be a sign of modest means. They were also very much an optional accessory, so we rarely see any ribbon styles universally adopted — rather they were worn or left off at the lady’s whim.
In this article, we are going to examine a particular style of ribbon — very wide neck ribbons (typically two inches or more in width) that were long in front. They were wrapped around the neck or collar, and crossed in front — often pinned with a brooch or locket — then the two ends were suspended at about 45 degree angles for a length of 5 to 10 inches.
Notched Sides
Notches along the sides of card mounted photographs are mostly a characteristic of Cabinet Cards, though a few CDVs, some of the late square and nearly square formats also have notches. Compared to cards of the same age in general, the notched cards seem to have square corners more frequently, though notched cards with rounded corners are also seen occasionally.
This report examines the temporal distribution and frequency of notches on the sides of card-mounted photos only. The phenomena resurfaced years later in certain commercially printed paper ’snapshot’ style photographs, and we will look at those another time.
Here we examine three types of notches, or perhaps four — we don’t have enough data yet to be sure if there is any benefit in distinguishing between two variant types, as we will describe in more detail below. As we will see, most notched cards also have gilt edges, though a small percentage did not — and that too has its own temporal distribution.
Bilateral Ovoid
I will use Darrah’s term for this type of CDV back — bilateral ovoid, though the term is not very accurate. The figure is bilateral — in fact it is bilateral in two directions, both left-right and upper-lower. But calling it an ovoid is a stretch. Since it doubly bilateral it seems quadrilateral should apply, but that simply means four sided, and does not have the symmetrical implications that bilateral carries. Perhaps symmetric quadrilateral would be more descriptive, but for historical reasons and out of respect for Darrah’s work, we will just stick with his term.
So the basic characteristic of the bilateral ovoid is that it is doubly symmetric, consisting of four segments that are each a reflection of one another. These segments are variously shaped, made up of straight and curved segments, and longer than they are wide at a ratio of about 1.5:1, so that the four combined enclose an area roughly 4 to 4.5 cm wide and 6.5 to 7 cm tall.
The outer edge of the CDV back may be plain or solid in some light color: gray, green, blue or tan are common, and the same color is used for the ovoid and intervening pattern. The area between the outer edge and the bilateral ovoid is filled with solid color, or more commonly small squares, fine lines or other patterns. Within the bilateral ovoid the photographers imprint is printed, most often in the same color ink as the ovoid, but sometimes darker colors, black, dark blue or purple.
All of this very complicated sounding description is most easily understood by looking at the various illustrations in this article. We have drawn illustrations from both our dated collection and the undated images, to show the range of shapes and colors. Of course we also discuss the frequency and temporal distribution, based on our dated examples.
Monograms
Monograms, those funny logos made up of intertwined letters — have you ever looked closely at them? Most people ignore these clues, they seem too commonplace to bear special attention. To the alert researcher, however, they can provide not only a clue as to who took the photograph, but also when it was taken.
To many people, the monogram seems just a tangle of lines. Often printed in fancy fonts that have been further modified by stretching and intertwining, they seem at a glance just a jumble. Indeed, in our digital archive, some of them are indecipherable — not because they lack a logic and clear character, but because you need to look very closely to see the details, and some of our dated images are reproduced too small to see such fine detail.
The hardest part about deciphering the monogram is sometimes deciding which order the letters should be in. Luckily, there are conventional systems that dictate how the monogram should be assembled, though they seem not to have been universally applied. Photographers are artists, and as such probably often designed their own monogram — perhaps some were unaware of the conventions, or chose to ignore them. Still, in the majority of cases, the exact sequence can be determined.
Real Photo Postcard Portraits
Real photo postcards were used for portraits as well as scenery. In this report, we will focus just on the portraits, as that seems to have been the most popular use for real photo postcards when they were first introduced at the beginning of the 20th century.
We will further limit this study to non-celebrity portraits by jumping to the somewhat unwarranted assumption that celebrity photos will have the name of the subject printed on the face of the card. In fact, that is not always true, but the exceptions are few enough that we can disregard their impact on our analysis.
It is well known that real-photo postcards were introduced around 1900, and are still produced today. Our interest in this report is to examine the percentage of dated photographs that are real-photo portraits, to see when the ‘fad’ peaked in popularity.
Preponderance of Evidence
In this post we are going to digress a bit from our usual technique of examining a single element found in photographs, and describing its frequency and temporal distribution, to discuss briefly our methodology. To fully understand the relevance of our observations, you need to understand how we arrived at the conclusions we draw from the available data.
The first question then, is: What is the ‘available data?’ We draw on three collections of dated images, using them individually or in combination depending on the nature of the question at hand. Each of them has its own limitations and characteristics that make it suitable for answering some questions, but not others. The primary qualification here is that they all are ‘dated’ images — but how do we know those dates are accurate? We will address that question in detail later in this post, first let’s look at the data sources.
One excellent source that we frequently use is the book Dressed for the Photographer, Ordinary Americans & Fashion, 1840-1900, by Joan Severa. Ms Severa is an expert in antique fashions, and applies her knowledge to some 280 photographs, beautifully reproduced. She describes the styles of each decade with about 25 pages of text, then goes on to show and discuss in detail actual photos from that decade. The book includes a useful 25 page glossary as well. In all over 600 big 8 x 11 inch pages make this hefty tome a gold-mine for those interested in antique photography.