Tag: early color photography

The Sunday porch: conversation

Cindy at enclos*ure9 Comments

1941 porch in Mobile, Alabama, by C.W. Cushman“Porch of old house at Monroe St., Mobile[, Alabama],” taken November 4, 1941, by Charles W. Cushman.*

The atmosphere of this porch is still and quiet, but I think there’s something urgent about the conversation.  The expression of the young woman in pink is serious; the woman across from her has stopped on her way (in or to her own house?) from the grocery store.  They all listen intently to the older woman in light blue.

Cushman was an amateur photographer who began documenting his travels in 1938, using expensive, (then) little-used Kodachrome film.  He continued taking color pictures for 32 years, ultimately bequeathing 14,500 slides to his alma mater, Indiana University.

NPR has an interesting audio/slide show on Cushman and his work here, and here is a series of color photos of New York City that he took in the early 1940s.

*Used with the permission of  the Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection, Indiana University Archives.  I originally posted this image in November 2012.

The Sunday porch: Leushinskii Monastery

Cindy at enclos*ure2 Comments

20996v“Mother Superior Taisila on the veranda, Leushinskii Monastery” in 1909, by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The monastery was (and possibly still is) in Leushina, in the Tver (or Tverskaya) Oblast of Russia — between St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Prokudin-Gorskii made early color photographic surveys of the Russian Empire between 1905 and 1915. The Library of Congress purchased his collection of 2,607 images from his sons in 1948.

21002v“Residence for the sisters of the Leushinskii Monastery.”

21002vdetailDetail above:  the interior steps start right at the door frame.

20997v“Residence of the Mother Superior.” All photos here by Prokudin-Gorskii, via the Library of Congress.

You can scroll through larger images by clicking on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on any thumbnail in the gallery.

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help.  Gardening is an instrument of grace.

— May Sarton