Tessera

Ambulator

@pmcghee2.bsky.social

Here I present real moments in time and space captured in old photographs, mostly stereoviews from the period 1850-1930. I also ramble on about rugs, other textiles and AI at @pmcghee.bsky.social

128 Posts26 Follower 15 Folgt

Ambulator @pmcghee2.bsky.social · 2w ago

How to watch the eclipse of 17th April 1912 if you weren't in Paris at the time

Ambulator @pmcghee2.bsky.social · 2w ago

1875 38.83368,-104.82083 (roughly) Colorado Springs, USA 270 Degrees (maybe)

A band of Ute people visiting Colorado Springs and photographed outside the photographic studio of Byron H Gurnsey on Pike's Peak Avenue. The people are:

Back: Chief Colorow’s son, Chief Colorow, Pooppe, Charley Alhandra, unidentified man, unidentified woman,

Front: Powatch, Quenche, and Chief Ouray

This group visited Denver on October 16th 1874 and were reported on in the Colorado Springs Gazette the following day, so this may have been taken soon after that.

The exact location of the photographic studio eludes me for the time being, hence the provisional location and camera angle.

Ambulator @pmcghee2.bsky.social · 2w ago

Friday, August 2, 1968 54.20336, -2.83526 0 Degrees Photographer: Ian Sutherland Krause.

This photograph was taken by Ian Sutherland Krause, the great photographer of the end of the steam era on British railways. The date date was the day before regular scheduled British Railways steam operations ended in the region. The locomotive pictured, number 75048, was working the final Ulverston-to-Carnforth pick-up freight train of the steam era.

The location is Arnside, where holidaymakers often parked on the beach but the tide races in very quickly. A siren warns of its imminent arrival, allowing time to pack up. I lived here until the age of five.

#BruceSterling @bruces.bsky.social · 5mo ago

*If you're into filmed documentation of the past here's a French diplomat wandering through China in 1901 with a movie camera *The material culture is amazing. No industrial products. Nothing imported. The Chinese have never seen a camera www.cinematheque.fr/henri/film/1...

Images de Chine (Auguste François, 1901-1904) à voir en ligne sur HENRI, la plateforme des collections films de la Cinémathèque française

Au Yunnan, à la fin de la dynastie Qing, Auguste François, consul, photographe et ethnographe amateur documente, grâce à une caméra mise à disposition par Léon Gaumont, des scènes de la vie quotidienn...

cinematheque.fr

Ambulator @pmcghee2.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We wants it my precious!

Rob Cruickshank@robcruickshank.bsky.social · 10mo ago

(screaming, crying, throwing up) Found a Viewmaster 3D projector at value village for 40 bucks! This is the good one, the one that actually projects in 3D!

A projector finished in beige wrinkle enamel, with two lenses and a plate that reads "stereomatic 500" in nice script

Ambulator @pmcghee2.bsky.social · 6mo ago

1904 35.00985, 135.78139 180 Degrees Kyoto, Japan.

The caption on this stereoview reads:

You are near the eastern limits of the city, in the home of one of Kyoto's most distinguished citizens. This room, whose south front is thrown open to the garden by the removal of its sliding screens, is furnished according to the custom of refined and prosperous people. The master of the house whom you see sitting there with a fan in his hand is the chief creator and promoter of one of the most famous art-industries in modern Japan the making of cloisonné ware (colored enamels on metal). In the old days before the abolition of feudal classes, he was a young gentleman of the court, belonging to the household of a Japanese prince. When the Mikado remodelled the whole system of Japanese nobility and removed the court from Kyoto to Tokyo,
Mr. Namikawa preferred to remain here and begin an entirely new career. He had, like all well-bred Japanese, a cultivated taste in ceramic art and metal working. and he began to make experiments in the production of colored enamels on a base of copper, silver or brass. As fast as he needed assistants he trained them personally for their share in the work: he invented processes of his own and devised a great number of exquisite enamels. His pride has always been, and still is, to produce what is genuinely beautiful, counting no expenditure of time and pains too great if the result is fuller perfection in design and workmanship. The products of his workshop are known by collectors and connoisseurs all over Europe and America.
The lady seated on the mat is Mr. Namikawa's wife. The young girl is his daughter. She is feeding the tame carp that live in a small artificial pond directly before the house. That charming garden with its Iuxuriant shrubbery, dwarf trees. sunny paths and picturesque little bridges is characteristically Japanese.

Ambulator @pmcghee2.bsky.social · 6mo ago

1866 37.53383,-121.9202 75 Degrees Fremont, California, USA

The Mission San Jose in Fremont California, founded 70 years before this stereoview. It's just up the road from the Tesla headquarters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Jos%C3%A9_(California)

Paul McGhee @pmcghee.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Musing about why the tech industry of San Francisco is so uniquely weird, I find that Niantic Inc. (created by the folks behind Google Maps/ Earth) the company that invented Pokémon Go (Jeffrey Epstein's favourite game) was named after a scuttled Gold Rush ship. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic...