June 19, 2008

Digitalized Moving Images from the Mid 1800's to Early 1900's









Using gif animation trickery, Joshua Heineman has been adding an extra dimensions to old pictures from the New York Public Library. I really love these images from the mid 1800's to the early 1900's USA. I've had a long and simmering love affair with history and archeology and I find these images from a younger United States during the Industrial Revolution really engaging.

1. Photographer 18 stories above Fifth Avenue, New York City, 1906
2. Broadway, New York City, circa 1860
3.“Powder monkey” on the Pawnee, American civil war, circa 1863
4.Vine-covered structure in Central Park, New York City, circa 1882
5.Cooking classes at Proximity Cotton Mill, North Carolina, 1909
6.Chinatown opium den, San Francisco, circa 1884
7.Chinatown, San Francisco, circa 1884

via cursive buildings

5 comments:

  1. Big damned deal. He's just rapidly alternating the two images from old stereoscope slides. I'd hardly call that "trickery."

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  2. Yes anonymous. But I still find the images engaging. But thanks for your feedback.

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  3. While the 'trickery might not be a big deal I think the 3D effect in some of the pictures are. To change the dimensions in 100 years old photographs is quite interesting beacuse the visualization and texturizing of it is totally altered. In a way we can engage a historical space with the 3rd dimension.

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  4. no, im pretty sure he just took the stereoscopic slides and layered them on top of each other as the FP pointed out. this is precisely what the stereoscope does -- create a three dimensional image by shooting a photo from 2 very slightly different angles.

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  5. He just laid the two Pictures from old stereo Cameras, like the one you can see on the first picture, together.
    He doesn´t need to change any dimension.

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