Are these picture taking duds ?

[Ian McWherter]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Am I reading the suggestion that the poor wore white / light colors out of a sense of self-respect to demonstrate cleanliness ? Never thought of it in those terms

Society in general dictated that clean white shirts and collars showed cleanliness and respectability (then and now) regardless of class. So working class men, despite their humble station and means, as well as upper class men all accepted this notion. The Millinery clerk, Henry Southworth, ran all the way home during another busy day of sales just to change his shirt collar. "Diary of Henry Southworth, 1850-51," entry for June 17, 1851.

As far as aprons are concerned, a shop keeper, etc., with a clean white apron shows that he keeps a clean neat shop, as opposed to someone who has a filthy dirty apron trying to give you service.

"...the age is, perhaps, forever gone by, when a privileged class could monopolize finery of garb; and, of all the civilized nations, it were least possible in ours." New Mirror, Oct. 21, 1843.

[Ian McWherter]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Doesnt seem to be the style frock in the Spies and Scouts photo.....

No, they are not, they are civilian sacks, dusters or paletots.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

The suggestion otherwise is that there is something inherent to the chemical process or the capture of light in period photography media that changes how the refractive properties of certain colors are reproduced

Yes, blue shows up lighter and orange/yellow shows up darker than how our eyes see them. That's what I was referring to when I said "allowing for the fact that blue-sensitive emulsion won't 'see' things exactly like the human eye."

I've worked with blue-sensitive dry film but not wet plate, so I don't know how sensitive to blue wet-plate is and if you can control it any. But that's why you can use an amber-colored light in a darkroom without fogging the film, because the film doesn't "see" amber light like we do, so it "thinks" the room is still dark.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Society in general dictated that clean white shirts and collars showed cleanliness and respectability (then and now) regardless of class. So working class men, despite their humble station and means, as well as upper class men all accepted this notion. The Millinery clerk, Henry Southworth, ran all the way home during another busy day of sales just to change his shirt collar. "Diary of Henry Southworth, 1850-51," entry for June 17, 1851.

[/I]

I am with you on white shirts and collars (including paper), I was refering strictly to outerwear.

I try to keep my commentary on the hobby to a minimum as I am no longer involved (or welcomed!) save for the love of history...but I have said to former friends who are known material afficianados, approved vendors and home tailors, the proper biled white shirt, civilian in nature is under represented and its alternative, used too many times to express individuality and flair, is the colorful, checked patterned shirt.

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[Hank Trent]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Society in general dictated that clean white shirts and collars showed cleanliness and respectability (then and now) regardless of class.

And somewhere in there, I think there was also the practical idea that white cloth could be bleached, boiled, scrubbed, or whatever necessary to try to get it clean again, while a printed or solid-dyed piece might fade under such treatment. So the stuff that got dirtiest--underwear, tablecloths, bedsheets, napkins, etc.--tended to be white so it could be washed over and over again.

Of course that also meant that if it wasn't clean white, you were either too cheap to have enough to change regularly between laundry days, or you skimped on laundry, which then led to the idea that pure white was the ideal and a sign of cleanliness, godliness, and all that good stuff. :)

Plus I wonder if there was also the practical consideration that linen was harder to dye than wool and silk, and cotton wasn't much easier, so even when cotton became king, there was already a tradition that things made of linen or cotton never took the rich colors of wool and silk, so if you wanted colors, you chose those fabrics, leaving linen or cotton to be white.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Ian McWherter]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

And somewhere in there, I think there was also the practical idea that white cloth could be bleached, boiled, scrubbed, or whatever necessary to try to get it clean again, while a printed or solid-dyed piece might fade under such treatment. So the stuff that got dirtiest--underwear, tablecloths, bedsheets, napkins, etc.--tended to be white so it could be washed over and over again.

Well said.:)

When people look at original white linen or cotton men's shirts they're amazed at the quality of construction, 20+ stitches per inch isn't uncommon. Reenactors rarely put such effort into their shirts, the thought generally is that this is one of the least visible parts of their impression so why should it be sewn so fine. Precisely for the reason's Hank stated above, repeated washing over and over makes it necessary for shirts to be sewn that fine.

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Yes, blue shows up lighter and orange/yellow shows up darker than how our eyes see them. That's what I was referring to when I said "allowing for the fact that blue-sensitive emulsion won't 'see' things exactly like the human eye."

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

Is it my screen and/or my eyes.... but the officer seated in the middle of the Scouts and Spies with his National officers jacket on, what I assume w/ high probability are "sky blue" trousers and the yellow / gold of his shoulder straps not representative of this photo-chemical phenomenon you describe ? (Though the metal braided wire if present may impact the straps but correct me if I am wrong lacking a "flash" it isn't reflecting back to the lens or adding any additional light or brightness as we see in later image technology.)



CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

On the officer ....another note....is that a stripe I see on those trousers or one hell of a modern ironed in crease ?

If so...Scouts......Spies......cavalry officer with his boys perhaps.....yeller stra'ps ?

and furthermore I dont see one glaringly obvious print shirt and a preponderance (the word hasnt been used in this thread in few days) of white shirts.

and you dont see men standin round with their hands on their hips down at the Tractor Supply like that too much anymore do ya ? (lest not the TS round my parts) or are those posed for the shot and period equivalence to being force posed into resting your chin on your proudly displayed, class ring bedecked booger hook in your senior pics ?

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[Hank Trent]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Is it my screen and/or my eyes.... but the officer seated in the middle of the Scouts and Spies with his National officers jacket on, what I assume w/ high probability are "sky blue" trousers and the yellow / gold of his shoulder straps not representative of this photo-chemical phenomenon you describe ?

I don't know that the effect is really all that dramatic or obvious. But one example where it might be working is the comparison of the seated officer's presumably sky-blue trousers with the light-colored trousers of the man standing behind him. In real life, our eyes might not see both as equally light, but there's no way to know without knowing what color the standing man's trousers are.

Several years ago, someone (the Meschers?) published several pictures comparing modern reenactors in wet-plate photographs and color photos, to show the difference in how the colors looked. I think it was in the old Citizens' Companion under Susan Hughes, maybe. Anyone remember that? It showed that there was an effect, but not necessarily a huge one always.

A good example of the "orange is darker" phenomenon shows up in this picture, where the man's tanned hands and face, with more red and orange tones in them, show up noticeably darker than his untanned arms and chest. The top image, reproduced with higher contrast, magnifies it even more than the lower image with less contrast.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

But there's no way to tell if a light-colored item is pale green, pale yellow or pale blue, for example, and I thought that's what Beck Morgan was talking about--a way to figure out which colors were which, and not just what was lighter or darker, from black and white images.

Yes, that's what I meant. In the cases I'm aware of, some items that was actually in the black and white picture still exist and were, by some Hollywood sleight of hand, used to determine what color everything else was. One thing I thought of later was that, unlike CW images, movies included numerous frames and the details of lighting and exposure were usually recorded, so there would be some indication of which tone reacted in what way. The early attempts at colorization seemed to read red very well and everything else not so successfully.

The shirts in the Chattanooga picture caught my attention because several of them look to be some solid color. I don't see fancy checks or stripes, but they're definitely not all white; it looks to be about three-quarters white to a quarter some other color, mostly light to medium except for the man in the dark shirt and/or vest.

There's one other practical matter about white cotton or canvas items: yes, they're harder to dye initially, and they also fade and wear quickly, especially when washed with period soaps. Wool will put up with a lot more, provided you don't accidentally felt it while you're getting it clean. White or unbleached cotton would be more practical for aprons and such that were changed often, and as someone else said, a butcher in a clean white apron gave a good impression. When it stained--as it always did--it could be sun-bleached in season. The heavy wear, not usually laundered with each use items like pants were much less apt to be white, no matter how wealthy the wearer, unless there was some really special occasion at hand. I've always wondered about the white flannel base ball (two words at the time) outfits that cropped up immediately postwar; Mr. Doubleday remarked that they were meant to reinforce the impression that it was a gentleman's game.

Etiquette books' rigid rules about who could or should wear what and when account for the amusement about the country folk. I stand by my hat comments, though the observation may hold better in postwar years. One of the best examples you'll find is a railroad work gang or a crowd of coal miners in pre-helmet days; elderly members of both groups pointed this out to me by the mid-1960s while we were looking at my grandfather's and great-grandfather's old pictures. Rank and file miners or track laborers wore caps. (There was a specialized miner's cap with a padded crown, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms.) The foreman will be wearing either a bowler or a fedora as his badge of rank. Sometimes it looks completely out of place, because he's in clothing as grubby as his men's and, in the case of a mine foreman, he's covered with the same layer of coal dust, but his hat signals his job. The standard didn't apply if the men cleaned up and went to town--out of their shop, away from the track or beyond the mine they were dressed as badly or as well as anyone else with roughly the same amount of money, dress hats and all. The exact nature of the hat, and of their other clothing, likely spoke of their social status. I'd especially like to know when railroad men in T&E service started wearing light blue, aka "thousand-mile" shirts, often adding a white collar and cuffs when they left the train. The blue dye on cotton faded, but was not unpleasing even in that state, and it showed less soot staining than white. (I can look up the citation as soon as I find that particular book, but it's no help with the beginning of the tradition; I see an awful lot of white, or at least very light, shirts on wartime engineers.)

Think of all the social cues that we're losing: the art of when to put on and take off hats for men, when to don and doff gloves (for both sexes), the times when leather gloves are appropriate and when they must be thread...some forty-five years ago, a ninety-something lady tried to explain to six-year-old me why her father (Confederate, post Vicksburg) looked awkward in a picture because of details of his clothing, this not matching that properly or some small thing missing that had embarrassed him when he showed her the tintype. She finally said "I know you don't understand; it was quite a different time."

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

On the officer ....another note....is that a stripe I see on those trousers or one hell of a modern ironed in crease ?CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

Looks like the side seam because of the angle he's got his leg propped up at.
Fifteen men, eight definite white shirts, two more that might be, only one shirt that either has subdued stripes or a pleated front. The shirts that aren't white, except for the pleated/stripedone, are solid light colors. The man standing behind the officer's right shoulder seems to have a pleated shirt in some color. I count eleven mustaches and five beards. Also note the variety of hairstyles and the one pair of checked pants.

As for the poses, no one is doing a Napoleon, but several of the other poses are sort of trademarks of the era (I don't know where the one arm behind the back came from, but it does show up, and this gentleman doesn't appear to be missing an arm on that side.) Some of the men appear to be sitting or standing naturally, but others...you're right about the yearbook photographers!

Does anyone know of the photo of the large group of Union generals--I believe it's a LOC image--in which they're all striking various heroic poses, or at least poses that used to be heroic? Because there are so many of them and they're not looking at the photographer, but off into the cornersof the room or to the side or wherever the heroic bent sent their gaze, the effect is inadvertently funny to modern eyes.

[NYCivilWar]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

I don't know if this is at all helpful, but I ran across this a couple of years ago. It is a link to "Color in Period Photography."

http://www.1skinnygirl.com/sewingbird/gallery/colorwheel.htm

[Hank Trent]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

Yes, that's what I meant. In the cases I'm aware of, some items that was actually in the black and white picture still exist and were, by some Hollywood sleight of hand, used to determine what color everything else was.

One could certainly make an educated guess, or identify existing garments among a choice of several, but there is simply not enough information in a black-and-white image, no matter how many frames, to tell for sure what color one thing was, out of all possibilities.

In other words, you could say, "We know he was wearing either his blue suit or his brown suit, and his red tie. By comparing the shade of his suit to the shade of his tie in the film, we can tell it was his blue suit." Or you could say, "Most men in the 1930s wore either brown, blue or black suits, so of those three colors, he most likely was wearing blue." But you could not say, "We know he was wearing his red tie, so therefore we can tell his suit was blue, and not brown, orange, green or purple."

If it's possible to tell actual colors from black-and-white images, when only one color is known, I'd like to read a detailed explanation of how it's done.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

In other words, you could say, "We know he was wearing either his blue suit or his brown suit, and his red tie. By comparing the shade of his suit to the shade of his tie in the film, we can tell it was his blue suit." Or you could say, "Most men in the 1930s wore either brown, blue or black suits, so of those three colors, he most likely was wearing blue." But you could not say, "We know he was wearing his red tie, so therefore we can tell his suit was blue, and not brown, orange, green or purple."
Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

That's reasonable to me. The very brief explanation I heard from a photographer--and I can't remember his name--who was doing some of the colorization was that he needed at least two known color values in consistent light to start the process, which seemed to e very involved. He showed a clip and pointed out a red dress still in the studio's collection and a jacket that had been preserved somewhere else and explained that he had colorized that clip with those and later color photos of the actors' skin tones as a starting point. He didn't mention how much guesswork is involved, and I'm suspicious of that. One color wouldn't do much good, or else any picture with a Federal uniform in it would be easy. I doubt even a jacket and the brass buttons would be enough.

Barring some amazing bit of technology, I don't think we'll be seeing full-color imagery any time soon...but it sure would be interesting.

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Are these picture taking duds ?

I don't know if this is at all helpful, but I ran across this a couple of years ago. It is a link to "Color in Period Photography."

I have read and accepted this before..but I am a simple hayseed and when I apply the color wheel below to images with known or high probability color assignments, It doesn't seem to reconcile... Scouts and Spies as an example. HT states perhaps it is more subtle. The Virginia Veranda link on this site is dead but purports to do a analysis demonstrating this photo-chemical phenonmenon. I would like to have a chance to review this. Perhaps the subtlety lies in the inconsistency in the quality and makeup of the reactive agents, the level of technical mastery and as always when exposing an image, available light ? For example did the photograpers which followed the Federal armies and created the majority of the images we rely on today, many well known, masters in their field hailing from major metropolitan areas with the greatest access to technology, superior materials and a larger client base and thus image processing time from which to perfect techniques produce, as a rule, clearer, more focused images ?

Are the images (Southern in particular) which appear to have been taken in the field, small town studio portraits and traveling image makers inferior as a rule ? Perhaps due to chemical, equipment and and processing technique disparities ?

I also think the effects when speaking of originial images of fading / degradation, yellowing of cellulose based protective coatings and just the plain ole' time can alter their modern appearance in addition to the fact that many of the images LOC...etc... are B&W film images reproduced from the orginal which adds its own degree of color and hue influence.

For the record I do not promote a suggestion in this thread nor believe you can predict colors in these images...save for known and high probability color assignments.

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida