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Toggy
Joined: 18 Aug 2008
Posts: 1239
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 Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 3:32 pm Post subject: Old Photos |
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I mean black & white ones, ones like these which I find fascinating.
Workmen in New york
Harland and Woolf workers leaving after their shift.
Titanic & Olympic side by side on the slipways in Belfast.
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gazmando
Joined: 15 Apr 2007
Posts: 560
Location: Huntingdon
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| Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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Those pictures are lovely, Toggy
Did you ever watch "The Lost World Of Mitchell And Kenyon"?, the same sort of thing but in video form.. |
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FleetingEileenM
Joined: 30 Mar 2010
Posts: 5767
Location: Hampshire
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| Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 9:57 pm Post subject: |
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Great photos! Did either of you ever see Stephen Poliakoff's TV drama called "Shooting the Past"? It was about a photographic library housed in a building which was about to be bought by an American for use as a conference centre, which would have meant the removal and possible splitting up of the unique collection.
It was such a wonderful production and the cast included Timothy Spall and Lesley Duncan as library staff and Liam Cunningham as the American "bad guy" who is shown the value of the library by Spall and Duncan rooting out photos tracing his past.
It's well worth getting the DVD - I've watched it a number of times and it never fails to fascinate and move me. |
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becky sharp
Joined: 01 Dec 2008
Posts: 6814
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| Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 9:00 am Post subject: Re: Old Photos |
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| Toggy wrote: | I mean black & white ones, ones like these which I find fascinating.
Workmen in New york
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That photograph makes me dizzy just to look at it,Toggy, but at the same time it absolutely fascinates me....it's wonderful.
There was a brilliant documentary on TV a while ago about the skyscrapers of New York being built and there were lots of scenes of men working away or sat as shown in that picture. I couldn't get over the fact that they were willing to work like that at such great heights without any safety harnesses but it was during the Depression and it was said they were only too glad to have a job regardless of any safety issues.
A new documentary film (Men At Lunch) came out this year about that photograph ...
Part homage, part investigation, Men at Lunch is the revealing tale of an American icon, the unprecedented race to the sky and the immigrant workers that built New York in the throes of the Great Depression. The film will open in New York on September 20 at the Quad Cinema.
In New York, 1932 the previous decade's boom of Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants led to unprecedented urban expansion, and workers risked life and limb building skyscrapers high above the streets of Manhattan.
In Men at Lunch, director Seán Ó Cualáin tells the story of the iconic photo "Lunch atop a Skyscraper," that is a definitive counterpoint of epic and mundane - and become a symbol of the indomitable working man.
Taken during the construction of the GE Building, the photo depicts eleven workmen taking their lunch break while casually perched along a steel girder - boots dangling 850 feet above the sidewalk of 41st Street - Central Park and the misty Manhattan skyline stretching out behind them.
For 80 years, the identity of the eleven men - and the photographer that immortalized them - remained a mystery: their stories, lost in time, subsumed by the fame of the image itself. But then, at the start of the 21st century, the photograph finally began to give up some of its secrets.
Director Sean Ó Cualáin explains, "My brother and I were in an Irish Pub a few years ago researching another documentary when we noticed the famous "Lunch atop a Skyscraper" image with a note beside the picture from a Pat Glynn from Boston, Massachusetts. On the note he stated that the man on the far right holding the bottle was his father Sonny Glynn and the man on the far left was Matty O'Shaughnessy, his uncle-in-law. We realized very quickly that there was a great, untold story here. There's the wider context - the glory of the skyscraper age and the building of the iconic Manhattan skyline-and secondly the parallel story of the European immigrants who arrived in New York during the roaring twenties and were living there during the Great Depression. Finally the mystery surrounding the photograph had to be investigated and told. Was it a fake? Who took the photograph? And, who might the men be?
http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmovies/article/MENT-AT-WORK-Documentary-to-Open-in-New-York-at-Quad-Cinema-920-20130725
Another one...
Asleep On A Girder
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I watched Shooting The Past,Eileen, and it remains one of my all time favourite TV dramas.
Timothy Spall was at his finest in it and those photographs were mesmerising |
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Toggy
Joined: 18 Aug 2008
Posts: 1239
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| Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:49 am Post subject: |
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| gazmando wrote: | Those pictures are lovely, Toggy
Did you ever watch "The Lost World Of Mitchell And Kenyon"?, the same sort of thing but in video form.. |
With Dan Cruickshank? yes, I remember he did a similar one called the lost world of Freece Green, all fascinating stuff. |
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Toggy
Joined: 18 Aug 2008
Posts: 1239
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| Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:51 am Post subject: |
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| FleetingEileenM wrote: | Great photos! Did either of you ever see Stephen Poliakoff's TV drama called "Shooting the Past"? It was about a photographic library housed in a building which was about to be bought by an American for use as a conference centre, which would have meant the removal and possible splitting up of the unique collection.
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No, but I will have a look for it, sounds just the sort of thing I would enjoy. |
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Toggy
Joined: 18 Aug 2008
Posts: 1239
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| Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:53 am Post subject: Re: Old Photos |
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| becky sharp wrote: |
Asleep On A Girder
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Oh my goodness! now I do feel dizzy!
I love these photos, they are such an interesting snapshot of social history and so on. |
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gazmando
Joined: 15 Apr 2007
Posts: 560
Location: Huntingdon
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| Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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I haven't watched "Shooting The Past" either Eileen, I'll put it on my Amazon wish list otherwise I'm bound to forget about it lol.
I didn't see the skyscrapers programme either Becky, I bet it was on BBC4 as all the great programmes seem to be on that channel, I'll keep my eyes open for it. |
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Schizoidman
Joined: 20 Sep 2010
Posts: 1140
Location: Rural West Sussex
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| Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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I've seen the photo of the workmen on the girder several times as it's on the wall at my dentists and I'm forced to look at it whilst having my teeth done  . Despite that, it's a fabulous photo, as are the others. |
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becky sharp
Joined: 01 Dec 2008
Posts: 6814
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| Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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| gazmando wrote: | I haven't watched "Shooting The Past" either Eileen, I'll put it on my Amazon wish list otherwise I'm bound to forget about it lol.
I didn't see the skyscrapers programme either Becky, I bet it was on BBC4 as all the great programmes seem to be on that channel, I'll keep my eyes open for it. |
It was a BBC 4 type programme,gazmando but I seem to remember this particular one was on the History Channel.
The entire series of Shooting The Past is on Youtube if you and Toggy fancy a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohPiEFu_1Xw |
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Colin
Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 916
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| Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 8:50 am Post subject: |
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| FleetingEileenM wrote: | Great photos! Did either of you ever see Stephen Poliakoff's TV drama called "Shooting the Past"? It was about a photographic library housed in a building which was about to be bought by an American for use as a conference centre, which would have meant the removal and possible splitting up of the unique collection.
It was such a wonderful production and the cast included Timothy Spall and Lesley Duncan as library staff and Liam Cunningham as the American "bad guy" who is shown the value of the library by Spall and Duncan rooting out photos tracing his past.
It's well worth getting the DVD - I've watched it a number of times and it never fails to fascinate and move me. |
I love Poliakoff's work and "Shooting The Past" is one of my all-time favourite TV films. It was, as you say, excellent and I don't tire of watching it. It was loosely based upon the fate of the Hulton Picture Library, as I recall.
| gazmando wrote: | Those pictures are lovely, Toggy
Did you ever watch "The Lost World Of Mitchell And Kenyon"?, the same sort of thing but in video form.. |
Film actually! But yes, it was excellent - and such a lucky find that is now a key part of the nation's cinema heritage. I loved the way that people stopped to look at the camera looking at them! These days, the cinematographer or videographer would receive abuse.
The work of William Freese-Greene is also significant in that film was used to document the lives of real people in everyday contexts. |
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Toggy
Joined: 18 Aug 2008
Posts: 1239
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Colin
Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 916
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| Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Toggy wrote: | | It was a TV series as well Colin. |
No, what I meant was that Mitchell & Kenyon shot film. Video wasn't invented then! |
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Toggy
Joined: 18 Aug 2008
Posts: 1239
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| Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:27 am Post subject: |
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| Colin wrote: |
No, what I meant was that Mitchell & Kenyon shot film. Video wasn't invented then! |
Smartphones were not so good back in the day.  |
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becky sharp
Joined: 01 Dec 2008
Posts: 6814
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| Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2017 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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Saw this old black and white picture today on Twitter...
The ticket hall at Euston Station in the Thirties
Most people mourned it's loss for what is there today whilst some (Tanni Grey Thompson included) pointed out it would be hopeless for wheelchair users. |
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FleetingEileenM
Joined: 30 Mar 2010
Posts: 5767
Location: Hampshire
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| Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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Talking of old photos, after my mother died last summer I was visiting a fairly distant relative and she showed me her photo album.
One photo jumped out at me. It was a family group from the mid-1930s standing outside the front door of my grandparents' house which I recognised at once. The group included my mother (aged about 17) her brothers and sister, my grandmother and five people who were a complete mystery to both my relative and me. There was a partial shadow of whoever took the photo and it must have been my grandfather as he would have been in the photo otherwise.
But neither my brother nor first cousin nor I had ever seen this photo and we assume that it was taken using the visitors' camera.
It made me think that perhaps anywhere in the world there could be a photo of me in a group and other people would be saying "Who on earth is that?" |
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becky sharp
Joined: 01 Dec 2008
Posts: 6814
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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| FleetingEileenM wrote: | Talking of old photos, after my mother died last summer I was visiting a fairly distant relative and she showed me her photo album.
One photo jumped out at me. It was a family group from the mid-1930s standing outside the front door of my grandparents' house which I recognised at once. The group included my mother (aged about 17) her brothers and sister, my grandmother and five people who were a complete mystery to both my relative and me. There was a partial shadow of whoever took the photo and it must have been my grandfather as he would have been in the photo otherwise.
But neither my brother nor first cousin nor I had ever seen this photo and we assume that it was taken using the visitors' camera.
It made me think that perhaps anywhere in the world there could be a photo of me in a group and other people would be saying "Who on earth is that?" |
I love old photos...family and otherwise.
I'm on a group on Facebook where people post lots of old photos of my home town...how things have changed and not always for the better. |
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