I doubt Team Stool Standing will ever become an Olympic event, but you never know. The world keeps getting weirder each day so I'm almost ready for just about anything. Eventually we all have to step outside our comfort zone.
When you're a caregiver for an elderly person you spend a lot of time worrying about them. And when they get sick with a bad cold you worry even more. And then when you see them coughing and sneezing and touching everything in sight you start to worry about yourself. You know there's no hope, you're going to get sick. And so that is how my life has played out lately. Tissues sticking out of my nostrils, mouth breathing, and eyes that wouldn't stop itching. Fortunately it has now mostly passed, but the downtime did give me time to spend wandering around online looking at vintage snapshots that I would never buy.
I've talked about my theory in the past that Kodak cameras set women free to express themselves in ways they'd never before been able to do. Being silly and having fun with no concern about what society thought was acceptable and often shows up in old snapshots. There were good genuine laughs to be had and shared. Today making pouty faces and taking selfies are the norm. Appearing self-absorbed seems to be a goal. So I wonder about the future poor soul fifty years from now wanting to collect "vintage" snapshots and faced with one selfie after another. I leave that worry to the future. Of course, a good portion of those photos will only be saved as digital files so there's a good possibility that many of them won't survive. Imagine a world free of Kardashian photos. Makes me smile.
But there is one thing I did notice the past few weeks which is that if you go in search of vintage photos you'll find the majority of them feature woman as the subject. I don't know why I never noticed this before. Shots of men are most often in uniforms or business suits. Occasionally you find them in casual clothes having a good laugh; of course the sellers immediately label them "gay" in hopes of taping into that market when they're actually just buddies having fun. Was it the actual fear that taking photos of playing around as friends would label them as homosexual so they stayed away from it? Women always interact differently than men so for them being both physically and emotionally close comes through as just girls being girls, no sexual connotation given.
So tell me what you think. Have women historically been the subject of snapshots more than men? I think in the future it will even out since men are just inclined to take selfies as women. And just think of all the genital shots in the future for all those unfortunate collectors. Perhaps they should be called taking a snapcrotch.
And now that I've read this back I think maybe I kept those tissues stuffed in my runny nose a bit too long and starved my brain of some necessary oxygen. But I'm still sticking with my theory. Women had more fun in front of cameras than men thanks to Kodak Brownies.
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Posts
Lake Tahoe low tide makes the sand shine like a mirror. I think there will always be pictures of pretty girls.
ReplyDeleteThat would be interesting if it was Tahoe because that is one cold water lake. Those ladies would be covered with goose flesh.
DeleteA perfectly delightful post! "Team stool standing," love it!
ReplyDeleteAbout women appearing in more snapshots than men, I asked that same question a while back too. I came to several conclusions just like you. The only prevailing factors that I was able to assemble were that, in general, women LIKE to have their picture taken and men are ambivalent about it. Men DO like the technology and mechanics of a camera more than women.
Another observation I made was from the collections I acquired. I often find a whole album or sometimes just a shoebox full of photographs. These groups are almost invariably over half snapshots of women, a large percent of children and only few of just men. Boxes of slides tend more to be travel/vacation shots of just places without people, or a procession of repetitious photographs of the new baby.
The popularity of the digital photograph concerns me also. I am not sure where it will lead or end.
Again: Fun post!
You are right. You nailed it, even the slides. I know because I'm one of those people who has taken hundreds and hundreds of slides of places, no people. I have never felt comfortable taking photos of people which was why I decided to not major in photography in college. Animals yes. Scenery yes.
DeleteI agree with AJ, one reason women are the subject of vintage photos is because a gadget obsessed man is behind the camera. But I also think that the early consumer cameras were a genuine way of liberating women too. I think women were also the gender in charge of scrapbooks and photo albums. Many advertisements for early Kodak Brownie cameras are targeted to young women to record those special moments of life. Like spool standing.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. The old Kodak ads are almost always geared towards women. When movie cameras came along the ads were mostly for men.
DeleteWomen, in singles and pairs, larger group shots, and the military. At least in my collection.
ReplyDeleteMe too, though I don't think I have any women in uniform.
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