UNDATED – Portrait of two young ladies. © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Ferd. Urbahns
The story behind the image
Here’s an old cabinet photo that I purchased recently. It shows two young ladies in a photo studio in Kiel, Germany. They probably were sisters or friends (but I’d tend to say they were sisters.) As the image does not carry any notes or exact dates, it is hard to find out more about them.
It is easy to determine when the image was shot, though. It must have been between 1893 and 1896. How do I know? Well, the photographer, Peter Detlef Ferdinand Urbahns, received his education from photo pioneer Georg Johann Koch. Then he worked for several years in the studio of Waldemar Renard (which still exists today, by the way) before opening his own studio in Kiel in 1890.
Now he could participate in exhibitions under his own name, and he received several prizes which he promoted on the back of his photos. This was common practice among photographers at the time. The photo above mentions prizes won in:
Dresden 1891
Wiesbaden 1892
Flensburg 1892
Kiel 1893
In the following years, the list got longer and longer, with prizes won in:
Frankfurt am Main 1894
St. Louis 1894
Schleswig 1896
Kiel 1896
Hamburg 1899
Flensburg 1902
I have seen backsides with the list ending in 1892, 1893 (my image), in 1896, 1899, and 1902. This suggests that Urbahns had been using the one that ends in 1893 from 1893 to 1896, when he mentioned the new prize as well. It seems that prior to 1892 he did not promote his prizes on the back of the photos.
This high key image must have been quite challenging to shoot. The ladies wore all white dresses in front of a white studio background, so very few parts of the image were actually not bright white. Just the shadows reveal the details. And this is what I really like about the image as it has the airy atmosphere of a nice summer day. It is easy to imagine the ladies leaving the studio at the Schlossgarten in Kiel and take a slow walk along nearby waterfront of the city.
Lovely.
P.S.: Read more about Ferd. Urbahns at Kiel Wiki (in German.)
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | c. 1894 |
| Location | Kiel, Germany |
| Photographer | Ferd. Urbahns |
| Image Source | 6 x 9 cm black & white Carte de Visite (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 | 5671 x 8572 Pixels |
| Copyright | Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Ferd. Urbahns |
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