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Student photographs people with hidden spy cam in the 1890s (2018)

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Re: Student photographs people with hidden spy cam in the 1890s (2018)

#91

Post by Markoff »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #55
Normille wrote: post #2

Great find. Thanks for posting. I love it when photos from this era occasionally emerge showing people acting naturally. We're so used to seeing the vast majority of Victorian photographs showing dour-faced people sitting or standing stiffly to attention, that it's sometimes difficult to believe they had human emotions, just like us.

Properly exposing the plate—or whatever—took several seconds, and it's way easier to look dour for five seconds than to hold a rictus grin. Source: Among other things, I've sat for a tintype portrait before. https://twitter.com/aaronbrethorst/photo

no, this is myth as clearly proven by these photos, it took pretty much no time to expose film/plate already in 19th century

Re: Student photographs people with hidden spy cam in the 1890s (2018)

#92

Post by mattlondon »

khazhoux wrote: post #38

Here's a street view for the 6th image (man tipping top-hat) https://goo.gl/maps/Pxh1QRzRgdn5Lrhc6

Curious - I noted the lack of cars and traffic in the old photos. There is none in Street view either!

Many times in Street view for London, it is difficult to see the actual street behind the traffic...

Re: Student photographs people with hidden spy cam in the 1890s (2018)

#94

Post by Markoff »

TheSocialAndrew wrote: post #57

It seems like back then people were smiling to a passerby and not to the camera. They'd keep a stern face when they were knowingly photographed. Now we smile for the camera, but not so much to a stranger.

you read at least the title right, it's SPY cam, so obviously if someone is taking secret photo of you, you don't smile for camera and we don't know who are these people, if it's complete strangers or his acquintances, though some of the photos are clearly staged anyway

you could get same reaction even nowadays depending on country, obviously you wouldn't have much success in Eastern Europe, where (many) people consider smiling at stranger as sign of mental illness (at least if it's same gender)

Re: Student photographs people with hidden spy cam in the 1890s (2018)

#95

Post by pomian »

saalweachter wrote: post #32

> “When he was a young man at Oslo University he fell in love with a lady whom he did not know and with whom he was too bashful to become acquainted,” writes his biographer. “Wishing at least to have a picture of her, he decided that this was possible only by taking a photograph of her himself, without her knowing.” Oh, technology.

So. Which one is she!

Re: Student photographs people with hidden spy cam in the 1890s (2018)

#96

Post by Markoff »

Volker_W wrote: post #43

Men were so much better dressed back then.

to be fair it's most likely rich people pictured, I would love to see same spy photos from village, I would bet my money people would not be wearing such fancy suits and hats as these urbanites

Re: Student photographs people with hidden spy cam in the 1890s (2018)

#98

Post by Croftengea »

throwaway2331 wrote: post #68
cmer wrote: post #59

Somewhat unrelated question that I could probably Google, but I figured it's more interesting to hear your take. Why do people on old pictures look like they're from a completely different era? They look like they're from the 1800s. Is it the camera, the clothing or did they actually look slightly different from us? Or perhaps it's just an illusion? Realistically I wouldn't expect humans' appearance to change that mu…

I thought this too, until I saw the pictures in the TFA. They literally look exactly the same as people from our times. Now I look at "1800s pictures" on some search engine's images, and they look completely different. I'm gonna guess it's a mix of: doctoring/"touching up," camera, lighting, and cognizant angling/positioning of the people in question. The candid shots look like people I would see on the street. While…

TFA?

Re: Student photographs people with hidden spy cam in the 1890s (2018)

#99

Post by gibolt »

pessimizer wrote: post #8
Normille wrote: post #2

Great find. Thanks for posting. I love it when photos from this era occasionally emerge showing people acting naturally. We're so used to seeing the vast majority of Victorian photographs showing dour-faced people sitting or standing stiffly to attention, that it's sometimes difficult to believe they had human emotions, just like us.

Without the posed stiffness, the major thing remaining that makes them look 19th century is that they're all drowning in cloth; lots of thick layers.

The layers don't look that thick, just voluminous, and likely quite good at letting through airflow.

Suits are always too many layers

Re: Student photographs people with hidden spy cam in the 1890s (2018)

#100

Post by brabel »

jbay808 wrote: post #84
mensetmanusman wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post ww2 lots of parenting books said that you had to be super strict and harsh with your children, or else they would lose the next war with Russia or whoever because they would turn out soft. It’s really fascinating, but losing millions of fathers in the war and then the post trauma strict parenting have had knock on effects we are still dealing with.

I bet that the trauma was even stronger in the USSR, which lost unfathomable numbers, and that maybe that generational trauma -- even moreso than communism -- resulted in the hawkish, militaristic, paranoid, confrontational, guns-before-butter standoff across the iron curtain throughout the cold war and which I think even lingers today.

I know people that come from the USSR... they universally fear war even today and think that's a realistic possibility in the near future. Most people living today have grandparents who can still recall the horrors of WWII... they lost a much larger share of their population to the war than all countries in the West (I think more USSR citizens died in the war than in all other countries combined). Nazis burning entire villages to kill off the local population (so the region could be settled by Germans later), they claim all villagers were locked up in the local church and then they set fire on it... people tried hiding in the forrests when they knew the army was coming and had to eat grass and leaves to survive.

They became really harsh people, and the population of most of Russia and current-day Belarus, Poland, Ukraine etc have a very characteristic attitude towards other people and countries that's completely contaminated by those memories.

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