UNDATED – A CdV photo shows August Leue with an impressive beard in a studio in Weissenfels, Germany. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Atelier Burghardt, Weissenfels
The story behind the image
I found this photo in a lot that I recently acquired – The Roesler Lot – and I don’t know August Leue, the gentleman on this photo. To my knowledge, we’re not related at all.
So why the photo then? Quite simply, because I like historic photos. I am attracted by the imagination how and why someone went to a photo studio back then. It was not for official reasons (like getting a passport) so it could only be done for private reasons.
Questions come up: Was the photo a gift for the parents? For someone else? A lover? Clearly, he put on some nice clothes to prepare for the photo session. How many images were taken? Just this one, or a couple so Mr. Leue could select the best one? Was he excited or nervous? I can’t say, but thinking about potential scenarios is inspiring. Soo many stories could center around this single photo.
What’s more, we can discover some of the tricks the portrait photographers of the period applied. The beard of Mr. Leue has clearly been extended manually to make it look more impressive and in line with the fashion of the time. The photographer skillfully extended both sides of the beard, and even when looking at the original CdV the manipulation can hardly be seen. It becomes obvious only when you do a high resolution scan and scroll around the image in Photoshop.
Go figure.
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | c. 1900 |
| Photographer | Atelier Burghardt, Weissenfels |
| Location | Weissenfels, Germany |
| Image Source | 6 x 9 cm CdV |
| 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 | 5537 x 8409 Pixels |
| Copyright | © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Burghardt |
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