Saturday, November 15, 2008

Stand up straight, boys

Alex Ron About 62

I like this photo, even though - or maybe because - there are so many things wrong with it.

This is from a collection of family photos from Maria's mother and the attached information says it was shot around 1962. Maybe I like it because it looks so much like the kind of photo my mother used to take with her Kodak reflex camera - tilted, off-center and stiffly posed. The angle suggests it was shot from waist-level with a reflex camera, rather than from eye-level with a straight-through viewfinder.

My best guess is that these kids are dressed up for church on Easter. The trees are still bare and in those days most people only took a kid's picture on holidays and special occasions.

The car is a no-nonsense daily driver without whitewall tires or anything fancy. It has a two-piece windshield, which dates it to the early '50s, but it the photo was shot in 1962 that explains the faded, flat appearance of the paint. The older boy seems to be a bit more emotionally invested in how cool he looks. The younger one looks like he's just going along with the joke. If they're still alive, they would be in their 50s now.

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