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:
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | 1910 |
| Image Source | 11.7 x 16.7 cm black & white print |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 5466 x 7826 Pixels |
| Copyright | Scan © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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