Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

boredpanda.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–109 of 109 posts

Re: Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

#101

Post by hultner »

317070 wrote: post #93
ryeguy_24 wrote: post #79

I just figured out why I think these photos are so interesting. I thought about these photos all day and couldn’t stop wondering why. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an old photo of people that weren’t posing. I feel like these photos are a magical window into life back then. It’s so amazing and eerie at the same time. Look at them tip their hats to greet the man. Look at these people walking down the street, petti…

Look at how clean those streets are! Is there someone from Oslo who can comment on these streets now? Are they still as clean (because they're in the political district?) or did we make our cities more dirty since then?

Our streets look similar to this, I rarely see any litter unless after a really big event or similar.

Background: I'm not in Oslo but I'm living in Gothenburg which is both close by (roughly 3 hours with bus) and roughly the same size. I live on the main Avenue (avenyn) walk to and from work so I see much of the central inner city every day.

Re: Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

#102

Post by pluma »

icdedppl wrote: post #58
nerfhammer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the lack of smiling. It's that they were stiff as a board, staring expressionlessly out into space, looking lifeless, taxidermic. The candidness of these photos is interesting because the people look so natural. It's not just the smiling, it's the casual, natural looking poses and expressions, only about half of which are actually smiling. They look actual real life people so to speak.

Some of those lifeless-looking people are actually lifeless: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-mortem_photography

It's rarer than pop culture myths would make you think: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/victorian-post-mortem-...

Re: Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

#103

Post by agoodthrowaway »

megy wrote: post #80
taneq wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed that no one seems to think it's creepy. Go around taking covert photos of strangers these days and see how people react...

It is in public. And if you sneakily take a photo of someone, how would they know to react? On top of that, there are cameras everywhere in public taking covert photos of everyone, I haven't seen anyone react to it.

It's still creepy. Doesn't matter if they know or not or if it's routine.

Re: Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

#104

Post by summerdown2 »

bcaulfield wrote: post #34
maho wrote: post #12

Whenever I see pictures from the pre-WW1-era I marvel at the shoes people wore back then. From the outside they appear comfortable, sturdy, and elegant. I wonder which would be more comfortable to wear -- hand-made, customized shoes from a 1900's-inspired, experienced shoemaker, or modern, mass-produced sneakers (which are pretty comfortable to begin with).

Yes, and the clothes. Okay, I know by many statistical measures we're wealthier now. But those clothes would cost a fortune now. Do they have fewer outfits? Are we only seeing the elite?

Both the photographer and his subjects are the elite. No-one in a top hat would tip it to anyone of a lower status.

Re: Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

#105

Post by dllthomas »

jacquesm wrote: post #47
bcaulfield wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and the clothes. Okay, I know by many statistical measures we're wealthier now. But those clothes would cost a fortune now. Do they have fewer outfits? Are we only seeing the elite?

My grandfather was a tailor, and ended up employing a 100 people or so. Tailor made clothing was the norm, rather than the exception for anybody of moderate means and just about everybody that could afford it had a sewing machine or knew how to use one. Sewing machines were common wedding gifts, and were the equivalent in money of a small car today. Fabrics were of far better quality than the ones we have today and r…

> Fabrics were of far better quality than the ones we have today

At a low confidence, I'd suggest that fabrics were often of higher quality, but even more often were simply sturdier. Our "better fabrics" often have a focus on being light weight at a cost to durability - which is a fine thing for some use cases and a poor fit for others.

Re: Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

#106

Post by shakna »

josephjrobison wrote: post #48
rrauenza wrote: post #29

Here's a little more on the camera: https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/08/16/alexiadis-vest-pocket... The photographer would wear the 6-inch diameter chrome camera under his vest. The lens would poke out a buttonhole, and the shutter could be tripped by pulling a cord. The camera could shoot six images on a circular dry plate; the photographer would advance the plate by patting his chest to activate a lever. [...] The…

Kinda odd that in 2018, these types of buttonhole cameras aren't super easy to find. I mean they have them on spy gear websites, and we all have phones, and there was Google Glass, but nothing super cool that's an obvious choice.

Depends on the quality you want, I guess.

A 640x480 VGA camera for Arduino, where the lens is about 1cm, so it'd fit pretty well, is about $5. Throw in a Nano for the board for another $5, and an SD card module for another $5, and you can probably build your own for about $20 all up.

Prebuilt, I've seen a few wireless "drone" cameras of similar quality for $20, and a few Chinese shops carry cameras like this [0] for $25 or so.

But... If you want better than a crappy VGA, you'll be looking for a while.

[0] http://www.dx.com/p/super-mini-small-portable-camera-button-...

Re: Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

#107

Post by Scarblac »

bcaulfield wrote: post #34
maho wrote: post #12

Whenever I see pictures from the pre-WW1-era I marvel at the shoes people wore back then. From the outside they appear comfortable, sturdy, and elegant. I wonder which would be more comfortable to wear -- hand-made, customized shoes from a 1900's-inspired, experienced shoemaker, or modern, mass-produced sneakers (which are pretty comfortable to begin with).

Yes, and the clothes. Okay, I know by many statistical measures we're wealthier now. But those clothes would cost a fortune now. Do they have fewer outfits? Are we only seeing the elite?

Nowadays, things that can be made by machine using little labour are cheap. Things that need a lot of manual labour are super expensive.

We are wealthy because so many cheap things exist now, so we can have a lot of things. But tailored clothes are still expensive.

Re: Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

#108

Post by 317070 »

anyfoo wrote: post #94
317070 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at how clean those streets are! Is there someone from Oslo who can comment on these streets now? Are they still as clean (because they're in the political district?) or did we make our cities more dirty since then?

Are you American? Streets in plenty of European cities still look like that.

London based now, but in Belgium they sure didnt. And I visited Stockholm and Alesund but didnt notice such cleanliness.

Re: Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s

#109

Post by GFischer »

317070 wrote: post #108
anyfoo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you American? Streets in plenty of European cities still look like that.

London based now, but in Belgium they sure didnt. And I visited Stockholm and Alesund but didnt notice such cleanliness.

In Vienna they did. And the joke goes that the Swiss say the Austrians are dirty :P
Post reply on HN