Vintage Squinters

"Move the sun please, we just can't help squinting. M.C.L." A real photo postcard addressed on the other side to Mr. Earl Cady, Laramie, Wyo., and postmarked in Laramie on April 27, 1909. For other squinty photos, see the Flickr group Squinting at the Sun. Vintage Photographs .

Stamped on the back of this photo: "Aug 18 1949." Posted to the Vintage Photos Theme Park group as an "unintended people's shadows" photo (and there's a dog, too!).

The automobile is a Ford Country Squire station wagon. Handwritten on the back of the photo: "1961."

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo of squinting into the sun (subjects obviously struggling to keep eyes open while facing into the sun for the photographer; borrowed from a Flickr group) . For additional examples, see my album of Vintage Squinters . Handwritten on the front of this real photo postcard: "Aug. 28, '07. Dear Grandma: I told you I was coming Thursday, a [week?]. How do you like Helen and I? I am not very well, Mary." Addressed to: Mrs. Mary E. Mock, Stoyestown, Pa., Route 2. Postmarked: Friedens, Pa., Aug. 28, 1907.

A little girl and her military doll.

A Kodachrome slide dated July 1959. After a hard day at the Big Rocks shootout, this diminutive Dale Evans has holstered her gun and is shielding her eyes as she heads toward the sun with Buttermilk (if she had waited until evening, she could have avoided the bright light and followed the conventional Western gunslinger practice of riding off into the sunset ). See also Gunfight at Big Rocks and Holding Down the Fort .

Swinging and squinting in the bright sunlight. Location unknown.

A real photo postcard.

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of messy (pics of mud covered children, birthday cake on the face, etc.) . Squinting in the bright sunlight, a cute little tyke sits among the carefully arranged messiness of an Easter photo op. See also the full version of this undated snapshot.

For more information, see the cropped version of this snapshot.

Sinister Sam lurks in the background as two women pose in front of a car with a 1940 California license plate. "61B626, California, 1940."

A fashion (in its day) photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. This is a Kodachrome slide processed by Kodak in July 1963. The image shows two women and a small child posing for a photo among the orderly lawns and houses of a 1960s suburban development. The older woman is dressed up in a patterned dress, necklace, and earrings, while the younger one is wearing a striped cover over her dress. The woman on the left is named Ethel (last name unknown), and she appears in other slides that I purchased along with this one. See, for instance, Ethel's Oil Painting, 1967 .

Written on the back of this snapshot: "Easter Sunday, Apr. 18-54."

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of hat in hand . Five fellows pose for a photo on a sunny day. The right side of the image is a bit washed out due to the bright light, but it's evident that the man on the end is holding a straw hat in his hand. What may not be obvious at first glance, however, is that the man in the middle is balancing a mounted deer head against his leg as he holds on to it with both hands. There's no address, message, or postmark on the other side of this unused real photo postcard. The type of Azo stamp box (with four corner triangles pointing up) printed on it suggests a date that may be as early as 1904 to 1918. Although animal head taxidermy mounts seem a little macabre to me, I do have two other similar photos. See A Man and His Deer Head and A Man and His Moosehead Bier . For another photo with multiple hats in hands, see Bachelor's Club Hats .