Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: tall

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of with Santa . "Merry Christmas." Two girls and a man pose for a photo next to a remarkably tall Santa Claus. This real photo postcard has a "Devolite Peerless" stamp box on the other side, and it's likely that it dates to the 1950s.

"O, is my true love tall and grand? O, is my sweetheart bonny?" Mirrors , cakes , apple peels , and chestnuts (see below) have all figured in the Halloween fortune-telling games depicted on early twentieth-century postcards. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I found this postcard by Ellen H. Clapsaddle , which suggests that young women could use cabbages (or kales ) to foretell what kind of husband–tall and grand? bonny?–they might marry. In a discussion about Pumpkins and Postcards and Portents–Oh My! , Mikaela Taylor of Middlebury College explains how picking a cabbage from the garden could predict a woman's romantic future: "If the selected cabbage or kale was difficult to unearth, it denoted difficulty in a relationship. Kale with clumps of dirt stuck to the roots signified a rich husband, and the size, shape, and taste of the kale foretold the physical attributes and personality of a future spouse." Ellen Clapsaddle illustrated a number of other prognosticating postcards like this one. For another example, see Halloween Chestnuts—Uncertainly, Hope, Despair, Happy Ever After .

A curious photographer props (huge urns or plants, strange objects, taxidermy animals, etc.) photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. "E. M. Criswell, Grand Meadow, Minn. Extra finish." A tall bearded fellow--his appearance reminds me of Rasputin , the Russian mystic and confidant to Tsar Nicholas II--stands in front of a painted backdrop and next to an oddly shaped prop as he poses for this cabinet card photo. Is that enigmatic object supposed to look like natural or carved stone? If not, I'm not certain what it's intended to represent.

A people on rooftops photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. A souvenir "Rockefeller Center Roof Studio" photo, taken 850 feet and 70 stories above street level in New York City, probably sometime in the 1940s. The Empire State Building is the tall skyscraper visible behind the man, and 500 Fifth Avenue is the one on the left. Today, this is the south view from what is now the "Top of the Rock" observation deck on the roof of the GE Building (formerly the RCA Building and soon to be renamed the Comcast Building). Also called "30 Rock" because its address is 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the building's nickname was the inspiration for the name of Tina Fey's popular 30 Rock sitcom, which aired from 2006 to 2013.

When I purchased this unused real photo postcard at a postcard show a few years ago, I thought it would be a straightforward matter to determine whose shoes these were. My first thought was that they belonged to someone like Robert Wadlow (1918-1940), who at 8 feet 11.1 inches "was the tallest person in history for whom there is irrefutable evidence." But since Wadlow was born in 1918, the smaller shoe from 1882 couldn't be his, and the larger shoe from 1926 dates to when Wadlow was 8 years old. Surely he wasn't wearing shoes that large at such a young age!

A real photo postcard. Date and location unknown.