A Quiet Afternoon At Home, 1910 (I)

1910 – A German family enjoys a quiet afternoon reading, knitting, or relaxing. Scan © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com


The story behind the image

This is another very old photo in our family archive. It shows the ancestors during a typical weekend afternoon in 1910. It’s a staged photo, of course, as the three people sit unnaturally close to each other, and the guy in the back is doing – nothing! On the other hand, we get a very good insight into what must be not too far from reality of the period: the daughter trains her knitting skills, the mother reads a magazine or catalogue, and the son just relaxes. There were not that many entertainments to spend some time. No TV. No Radio. No movies. No PCs. No Internet. No smartphones. Geez.

With this image I trained my photo editing skills because the original print looks horrible today. Not only has it faded a lot, but there are many color stains and some dirt in the print. I guess the daylight was streaming in from the left, and the blouse of the daughter reflected the bright light a bit too much, resulting in a “halo” around the blouse. Of course, it is possible that this was done by intent, but I doubt it. In my edit I’ve reduced the halo to what must have been the original intent of the photographer.

In case you are wondering how the print looked before the editing – here’s a calibrated scan:

Color calibrated scan of a 1910 picture found in the Zanzig/Gorber family archive. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com

The high resolution image

Capture Date1910
Image Source11.7 x 16.7 cm black & white print
Digital Image SourceEPSON Perfection 4870 Photo
Digital Image Source FormatTIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB
Edited Image FormatJPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB
Edited Image Dimensions5466 x 7826 Pixels
CopyrightScan © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com

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