Friday, November 6, 2015

MAN IN A CHAIR...


Spirit pictures, faerie photos.
There were various names for these eerie snapshots – regular photographs of regular people doing absolutely regular things. These, though, had shadow images in the background – departed loved ones lurking behind chairs and curtains, tiny winged creatures hovering over heads and shoulders, clusters of wispy fairies prancing on lawns or dancing on palm fronds.
          I don’t have any of them in my collection of old family photographs. I do have a photo of my great-grandparents’ home on Boylston Street that has a faint figure standing in an upper floor window, but I’m pretty certain it was my great-grandmother.
And she was no prancing fairy, I can assure you…


What I do have, though, are lots of photos of men in chairs; it seems to have been a popular pose for formal photographers in the late 1800s and early 1900s: Man in chair, either alone or with wife standing beside him (her hand on his shoulder—oftentimes her left, showing her wedding ring), his children clustered at his feet like decorations.

And casual shots, too.
Here are two of a man in a chair from my collection of old family snapshots; both are of my paternal grandfather, Gardner S. Gould.
This first photo is undated. I have no idea why a rocking chair is plunked in the middle of a tennis court, but I love his knickers, his street shoes, his coat and tie and pipe (I remember the smell of his pipe to this day). This is in the 1920s, I think.

In the second shot, he’s sitting in the afternoon sun in the back yard in Newton; his dog Beans at his feet. It’s September, 1943 (my grandmother penned the date on the back). Casual trousers, shoes and socks, sweater and tie…

We called my grandmother Da, we called him Man.


Here he is: Man in a Chair.

18 comments:

  1. Nice 'take' on the theme! A rocking chair in a tennis court IS rather strange. A regular chair, maybe? I suppose he was simply watching some folks playing tennis & the rocking chair was the closest thing handy? He does look rather debonair in his suit jacket & knickers, smoking a pipe.

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    1. Beats me why he's in a chair. Seems pretty silly, doesn't it? But he was a handsome man (our Man); we loved him dearly.

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  2. I hadn't noticed the man seated in a chair. I mean I did, but I didn't. Very nice. Wonder what he was doing sitting on the tennis court.

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    1. It puzzles everybody, Kristin! Maybe the courts were closed, maybe he was just being ornery -- who knows?

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  3. Debonair is a perfect description for your grandfather, sitting there right on the court, as opposed to courtside. Presumeably there was no game going on around him!

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    1. I never thought of using that word before, Jo, but it does seem to fit...of course he did have khakis and old shirts for puttering around the house...

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  4. Surely a rocking chair on a tennis court was the ultimate sign of wealth and status. HA! I like how comfortable Man looks in both pictures. Too often in those studio portraits the seated subject looks stiff and uncomfortable.

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    1. Every time I look at this photo, Wendy, I say, "What was he THINKING?" I don't remember him playing tennis (although my father did)...whatever, it's one of my favorites!

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  5. Two fine photographs. Sometimes a photograph will give many answers and then ask you some questions. And I wonder too, how the tradition of a seated man and a standing woman got started.

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    1. Interesting question...I don't know (perhaps other Sepians do...). But I've seen lots of photos with seated man/standing woman!

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  6. The first grandfather I've heard called Man. I guess he was The Man and gives you the perfect play on words, sitting in chairs as he did.

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    1. Calling him "Man" is odd enough; calling our grandmother "Da" is equally perplexing! I have no idea where those names came from, but I suspect my oldest cousin Robert named them!

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  7. Great photos to have! One says "pondering" and the other says "relaxed" to me :)

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    1. Great word, Sharon! He WAS a ponderer...used to sit on the back porch in Boothbay and watch the tides shift...

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  8. A good lesson on how we don't look at photos properly but simply concentrate on the main point of interest. As people have pointed out there is much more to this photo than just a man sitting in a chair.

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    1. Indeed! Noting all those perspectives is what I love about Sepia Saturday contributors -- so many ways of looking at the same thing!

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  9. I really like these photos of Man. I wonder if the tennis court was chosen because it was a nice open space in which to pose, with few extraneous background details.

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    1. Could be it -- who knows? It seems odd to me; I wonder if everybody had a picture taken in the chair?

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