history?

[kindkit]

Does this supposedly vintage photo of two men holding hands on a beach look photoshopped to anyone else

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I agree, it looks like it's been filtered, and possibly from a colour image. Maybe they learned from the "pretty is more important than accurate" school, like the makers of "The Tudors"?

[kindkit]

like the makers of "The Tudors"

*stakes horrid faux-historical fiction through the heart*

[van]

It's definitely hard to say. If the photo was taken in the 1970s, say, it's still considered "vintage." (I'd be okay with a site like this calling a photo from the 1980s "vintage" too, though I think technically that's called "retro.") The sepia tone on it, however, does make it look like it should be from the 1950s or earlier. Frustratingly enough, it does look like it could be anywhere from about 1940 to modern day

[kindkit]

My feeling is that if the photo has been manipulated in any way to make it look older, that's an intentional deception. Especially if the original image is post-Stonewall; to me, the cultural shift is sufficient that a "vintage" image of gay life from 1960 is really different from one dating from 1970 or 1980.

But I never meant to imply that it was completely faked, just digitally aged up.

Does this sepia toning look similar to the other sepia toned pictures?

Yeah, many of them are about that color. And in some cases--where the site showed the before and after "restoration" images--it's clear that a color filter was used.

I know I'm being persnickety about it, but I intensely dislike things being faked and then presented as real history--especially when it's the history of marginalized groups, because such history is disproportionately subject to distortion, disappearance of evidence, etc.

[van]

You're absolutely right, of course. I don't think it's persnickety at all. I tihnk it's a very valid concern and quite unfair not only to people like us, but to those two men and to all the queers who WERE out or posed together with other men pre-Stonewall. I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. Maybe you can contact them and ask for more information or even just express your dislike for the restorations? Or even just ask that "restored" pictures be clearly labeled as such.

By the by, did you ever get to see that episode of The Likely Lads that was missing off YouTube? (No Hiding Place) I finally got a copy of it and around to watching it and it's definitely worth a look.

[redscharlach]

I strongly suspect that the book Dear Friends may be the source of quite a few of those images. If so, most of them are anonymous anyway and were collected by the author over the years. Still, the photoshop tinkering does feel like an attempt to make the source slightly less obvious, or at least to allow the website folk to say "but we didn't just copy the image, we changed it slightly, so it's art!" or something.

[kindkit]

Yes, I recognized some of the images I linked to as ones I'd seen in Dear Friends, although I blanked on the title when I was writing up the post. The image I linked to isn't from there, though--probably because it's too recent.

[oursin]

When we used to produce an annual departmental report with a cover illo from some image in the collections, we had to get quite fierce with the publishing people not to do that sepia effect thing (because it was an 'old' photo...) - in at least one case this had the unwanted effect of aestheticising and distancing a rather shocking picture.

[hafren]

I have met children who honestly thought that in great-grandmother's day, the world was a mellow shade of brown, because that's how it is in the photos...

[kindkit]

Obviously you need to show them black-and-white films; that'll confuse them!

[kindkit]

Huh. It's fascinating how what was originally a technological artifact has become a signifier.

[bodlon]

I've seen photos of my grandfather dressed like this from the 1960s, possibly 50's. He died in the 70s, so...

No clue. Hating the faux sepia, though.

[kindkit]

Yeah, it rings that "family photo from the 1960s" bell to me too. But there's something about the shorts the guy on the right is wearing--the length, maybe--that looks possibly more recent than that. It's a puzzle.

But, yeah, the sepia tone is just wrong.