A Visit to the bachelors, circa 1909

Amy Paulson and her friend visit with two young men,  circa 1909

This picture fascinates me. The blurriness creates a sense of these long ago people in motion. Amy returns to her chair. Her friend leans forward, perhaps to offer more coffee. One young man smiles directly at the camera, the other shakes his head with a smile. All of this blurred.  Their lives, like ours, are never really caught on camera. Meanwhile, the table, coffee tin, chairs, picture on the wall remain motionless, unchanging, and distinct. And it is these objects that come down to us through time, that remain as material clues to a forever blurred past.  I think about my own motionless home environment through which I and my family endlessly perambulate. It all just seems very poetic.

By the time this picture was taken, about 1907, camera film, equipment and techniques allowed a pretty fast exposure. It was not like the early period of photography, when people had to remain motionless for some time to get a clear picture.  Still, in the low light of this indoor room, a longer exposure was needed, thus the blur caused by motion of our subjects.   Speaking of whom – the lady on the left is our frequent photographer, Amy Paulson. It is likely that the woman in the middle is her friend, Mabel Magnolia Cavallin, who returned to Olivia, Texas about this time from a lengthy (4-5 year) visit to Iowa.  As for the 2 young gentlemen – they are pretty blurry in this picture. Perhaps next week’s picture will help reveal their identity.

Identifiers:

Negative: Paulson024 (Scanned at 1200 ppi tiff, resized to 400 ppi jpeg for this post.)

Place: Probably Olivia (Calhoun County) Texas

Date: Probably Circa 1907

People:  Amy Paulson (1881 -1917)

             Mabel Magnolia Cavallin (1884-1958)