This real photo post card is one of my favorite images from my collection. A mistaken double exposure or a purposeful shot? It is a ghostly picnic.
I always think of act three from Thorton Wilder's play Our Town when I look at it.
The Stage Manager opens the act with a lengthy monologue emphasizing eternity, and introduces us to the cemetery outside of town and the characters who died in the nine years since Act Two: Mrs Gibbs (pneumonia, while traveling), Wally Webb (burst appendix, while camping), Mrs Soames, and Simon Stimson (suicide by hanging), among others. We meet the undertaker, Joe Stoddard, and a young man Sam Craig who has returned home for his cousin's funeral. We learn that his cousin is Emily, who died giving birth to her and George's second child. The funeral ends and Emily emerges to join the dead. Then Mrs. Gibbs tells her that they must wait and forget the life that came before, but Emily refuses. Despite the warnings of Simon, Mrs. Soames, and Mrs. Gibbs, Emily decides to return to Earth to re-live just one day, her 12th birthday. She finally finds it too painful, and realizes just how much life should be valued, "every, every minute." Poignantly, she asks the Stage Manager whether anyone realizes life while they live it, and is told, "No. The saints and poets, maybe – they do some." She then returns to her grave, beside Mrs. Gibbs, watching impassively as George kneels weeping at her graveside. The Stage Manager concludes the play, reflecting on the probable lack of life beyond Earth, and wishes the audience a good night. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)Did these young ladies and gentlemen mysteriously disappear following their gathering? Was there an accident? Perhaps a drowning from an overturned boat on the nearby lake? A vehicle overturned killing all aboard? Did they forever haunt the place where they last knew happiness together? We'll never know, but the image is certainly open to interpretation.
This is my Sepia Saturday contribution for the week.
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Your last paragraph brings to mind the image of that oft-reproduced, and I think pretty disturbing, painting Ophelia by Millais which is always trotted out whenever the subject of pre-Raphaelite art is brought up.
ReplyDeleteIt was so easy to forget to wind on the film in early roll film cameras, and thus inadvertently produce double-exposures, but I might just as easily have been intentional. As you say, we'll never know for sure, but isn't it it fun to decide for one's self and live with that image in one's mind.
Ah yes, you're right. Death awaits them.
DeleteOh, eerie indeed. What a sad stage play too.
ReplyDeleteA 5 star image and a perfect fit for the theme. Our Town is THE great American play too.
ReplyDeleteYour post is perfect - the picture and your interpretive take on it a la Thorton Wilder's great play. I enjoyed it very much!
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me too of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' where almost the entire school party disappeared.
ReplyDeleteI hope it's a mistake in the film processing, otherwise that gentleman has his head up that lady's skirt! (Trust me to lower the tone.)
Oh dear. It is all too true. In the annals of Australian history we have a true story where several school girls disappeared many years ago after a picnic. The story has been immortalised in a film called "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and my first thought after I saw your picture and before I read the comments was - "Picnic at Hanging Rock"!!
ReplyDelete"...Hanging Rock" is always my second choice. "Our Town" is just ingrained in Americans from their days in school. I do love the "...Hanging Rock" film by Peter Weir.
DeleteWe really ought to have such double exposures as a Sepia Saturday theme. Could we use your photo as a theme image?
ReplyDeleteSure, that sounds doable.
DeleteA rare one. Mistakes like this one don't always make it home from the photo finisher.
ReplyDeleteI can see three guys in the seated group but I can only find two in the standing group.
They're all there. First one in first row with hat. Second behind him a bit to the right. The third at the very top.
DeleteOh, sure. I see them now.
DeleteThat double exposure sure makes for an eerie atmosphere, and reminds me of the classic Australian film 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'.
ReplyDeleteI once had to learn a piece from 'Our Town' and can still remember part of it:
“Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners... Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking... and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”
― Thornton Wilder, Our Town
Sorry, I missed seeing the previous reference to the movie.
ReplyDeleteThat's a fascinating and intriguing photo.
ReplyDeletePicnic at Hanging Rock came to my mind too. We used to love going there for picnics of our own - never managed to get lost, or even to lose my brothers - no matter how I tried :)
ReplyDeleteLike others above. My first thought was Picnic at Hanging Rock.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock_(novel)
Ah yes, your post ventures through the post I had planned for today, (sort of) it's about ghostly thoughts and mysterious what if and other unknown answers. I hope too that it really was just a double exposure, but it sure opens up the thought of combining a true one shot photo of a group that are together but yet how the photo is shot, with the others trailing off into the woods...one may certainly wonder! Superb post!
ReplyDeleteHauntingly eerie, yet beautiful. A photo I'll remember.
ReplyDeleteWow. I haven't thought of Our Town in years. But your likening it to your photograph is spot on. Double exposures such as this one are eerie. You've given me an image I won't soon forget. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm late because now I see Alan's brainstorm. I almost posted a double exposure picnic but passed on it. Now I'll be ready whenever that prompt rolls around.
ReplyDeleteLove the connection to Our Town.
What a great shot! It is VERY creepy -- I find all double exposures a bit eerie; it's like time-travel to me!
ReplyDeleteA fabulously eerie picture double exposure or not. And why did I throw all those double exposure shots away. Are they a thing of the past in this digital camera age?
ReplyDeleteSadly, yes, they are a thing of the past. Today any recent ones you see are simply digital manipulation.
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