Saturday, April 27, 2013

Early Photoshop


When my mom passed away, one of the things I asked my brothers for was the wooden chest full of family pictures/memorabilia that she kept in the basement my whole life. Unfortunately, at the time, the husband and I didn’t have room in our apartment to store this large chest, so my oldest brother agreed to keep it at his house. Recently, however, he emptied out the chest, put everything into four boxes, and shipped them off to me.

So far, I’ve opened the two smaller boxes. I’ve already found all kinds of interesting things. Expect to see more of this turning up on my blog in the not-too-distant future. For now, though, I wanted to share this picture I found in “The Greybric,” my grandfather’s high school yearbook. The year was 1926 and my grandfather was a freshman.

I was looking through the clubs and sports in the back of the book to see if Grandpa F. had been involved in any of them. After a while, I realized that he probably wouldn’t have been since he was a freshman. Anyway, that’s how I stumbled across this picture of the Greybric staff:

"Maybe his head really was that big," said my husband, hahaha.

Check out the guy in the very center of the back row. Does he look a little “off” to you? Apparently, someone missed picture day. Or perhaps he was having a bad hair day. However, since he was probably the editor-in-chief, he didn’t want to be left out. So when the book went to print (I surmise), he cut out a picture of himself and inserted it into the group picture. Unfortunately, he seems to have had a bit of a sizing problem.

I find it oddly comforting that, lured by vanity, people engaged in photoshop even back in the day, and that they were just as bad at it back then as they are now.

In my house, we got a good chuckle out of it. I hope you do to.

2 comments:

Patricia said...

That's very funny. Have you read Ransom Rigg's YA book? Or his photo book, for that matter? He collects old photos, specializing in photos with things written on the back. His YA book is based on old "magical" photos.

balyien said...

I haven't read anything of his, but I think I may have his YA book on my to-read list. I'll have to look and see.