SCENE | Standing on the Jib Boom


Photo by Toni Frissell, 1940 via Pretty Odd Wonders.

As the book comes together I have become thoroughly obsessed with fashion and war photographer Toni Frissell. How incredible is this image? Color photos from the 1940s-1960s seem to have this invisible magical layer that really gets me.

Comments

notanymore said…
That's a might long jib boom. The boat must be pretty massive.
Rebecca Crowther said…
More than one magical layer, I’d say. In color images, there’s that lovely, saturated better-than-color off-ness about the images, which comes from a lack of accuracy in the chemistry. But I sense other layers, too...

They’re the ones I call “traces”, “remnants”, or “shadows” of the past. It’s as if ghosts become frozen in these older images...and in this case, the ghost is a moment in time when a good-lookin’ short-shorts wearin’ babe from the 40s climbed atop a jib boom.

Part of the magic is that she'll be there forever.

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