Say Cheese
We love this set of photographs from 1890, of a couple giggling between frames – mainly because of how rare it is to see ‘outtakes’ of historical photographs. Unlike today where advances in technology allow for tens of photos to be snapped in mere seconds (most of which are later deleted,), in the Victorian era and the dawn of portrait photography, each photo taken was precious. Not only are these photos incredibly rare, but just as rare is the Victorian portrait where someone is smiling at the camera!
In 1890 when this couple was captured, the camera itself took an exceptionally long time – sometimes as long as fifteen minutes, and holding a smile for that long would definitely be physically challenging! So instead, somber or unsmiling portraits were the mainstay of the day.
Living Testaments
In 1944, Walter and Werner were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps during World War II, where over 1.1 million men, women, and children lost their lives. Auschwitz was the only camp to tattoo Jewish prisoners as they arrived. Incredibly, Walter and Werner arrived on the same day and were tattooed just ten numbers apart: A1828 and A1838, but despite being in the camp at the same time, they had never met until this reunion, seventy years later.
The third man in this truly incredible photo is also a Holocaust survivor who was sent to Auschwitz, and was brought together with Werner and Walter by the Last Eye Witness Project which is dedicated to preserving and sharing the stories of Holocaust survivors.