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Strange Photo

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Anconite

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Jun 27, 2005
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I originally posted this with its accompanying ebay link, but it was moved to the ebay thread in General. I wasn't commenting on the auction, merely stating my source.

After reading thru the thread it was moved to, and feeling that my questions would go unanswered in the world of elvis toast and haunted handbags, I decided to delete it and move it back here with a different heading. If i am still out of place, please move it back moderators and I'll let it stand.

What is this picture of? Is it a woman in a costume? A burn victim? It gives me a terrible sense of unease. What do you guys think?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/ ... le1082.jpg

if picky no worky: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/ ... le1082.jpg


edited by Quixote- to stop image breaking page
 
Anconite, could you include the link to the eBay page where you found the photo? It would help with trying to source where it has come from or why the woman is dressed as she is.

I've also edited your post as the image was too large and I've moved your thread to General Forteana.

Anyway it is a strange photo, it looks like a homemade mask with button eyes. Hopefully someone may be able to shed more light on it.
 
Freaky. Looks like she's wearing the face of a WW1 pilot, with leather helmet, goggles and bushy 'tache.
 
Sure here is the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 51241&rd=1

The seller has about as much of an idea about the subject as we do, if slightly sensationalistic.. (I re-hosted the picture myself.) Thanks for the edit.

I just noticed as well that it seems like something is on her hands, At first i thought they were in her apron pocket but now not so much. they seem to be in big mittens or something.
 
Well, it does look like a crude mask, made of white cardboard or papier mache something similar. To our left, there seems to be sliver of dark hair protruding ever so slightly from the side of the mask.

The mask is out of proportion; too long to be a real face.

But it's the mouth that's alarming. Never seen a mouth that size and shape on a woman. It would be large even for a man. Which led to me suspect that it is a man, in a dress, wearing a home-made mask, possibly with a false moustache attached and wire framed glasses over the mask.

I realise that women quite often have a cleft (a la Kirk Douglas) in their chin, but the person in the photo appears to have the deeper type cleft ordinarily seen on men.

Not sure about the hands. They could be oven mits I suppose. Or work gloves.

Hard to say. Could be a woman with an unfortunate mouth/chin combination who'd been persuaded to put on a mask and anything else to hand, for the sake of taking a funny photo. Maybe the family had only recently obtained a camera? Or maybe the woman was going to, or attending, a fancy-dress party?

The mouth though ... would be scary if it is a woman.
 
Hmm it is strange - reminds me of some of the work of Diane Arbus.
 
Just read the Ebay description, which suggests the photo was taken outside a rural dwelling.

This had been my first impression also, but then I remembered old halls (church, meeting places, etc) that I've seen in the country, and felt the place in the photo was such a building, rather than being a family home.

Some of the old country halls aren't used all that often, or at least they're uninhabited/unattended during weekdays, with the local inhabitants widely dispersed on farms, etc,; often several miles from the hall. Sometimes there isn't even an actual town, other than a petrol station which can operate also as post office and general store, bulk-feed depot. These halls are often multi-purpose and used as a church, for weddings, meetings, celebrations (weddings) and so on.

When I saw the building in the photo, it reminded me of the back of some of these old halls, which are often quite large, barn-sized things built to cater for gatherings of a couple of hundred people from outlying farms and villages.

The building in the photo looks like the rear of the kitchen area of such a hall. There's no vegetation at all, just gravel. If it was the back of a rural family home, you'd expect to see more sign of continual habitation than exists in the photo.

Also, when I went back to the photo, I saw what appears to be iron bars affixed to the window, which would make sense if the building was a place that was left vacant and unattended for periods of time. Haven't formed an opinion of the objects in the window, although if it was the window of a kitchen at the rear of a hall, they could be empty cans of bulk vegetables; beetroot for example. If it is a hall, it would cater to large numbers of people; food would be involved and they would need to be large sized tins.

I believe it is a man. It looks to me that the person's ear protrudes slightly beyond a rough projection of the mask at almost the same level. Which indicates to me that it is a person with a normal sized head (based on the level of ear compared with chin, mouth and general jaw area), wearing a mask. And the shape of the mouth indicates to me that it's a man. It could be a country party type of thing, where a man dressed up in a frock and a rough mask and posed at the back of the hall for a laugh. And he would be laughing, if he could see the price of the photo !
 
I love looking at old photos and wondering what happened to the people in them. Maybe this is one of our ancestors and here we are discussing thier halloween costume!

you're right, it does look like the back of a grange hall or a rural church of some sort.

It could be a man in drag, but those legs are pretty feminine, although they are in stockings, the feet are small too. The stance doesnt look affected either.
 
Interesting picture.
I think it was photo-shopped, the reason I think this because on the right side of the head you can detect where the pixals of the superimposed "mask" was cut and then pasted onto the old picture.
IMHO the "mask" kind of looks like Homer Simpson, DOH!

Peace
=^..^=217
 
i dont think they had photoshop in the 1920's.

If someone was trying to make a fake photo and sell it on ebay, they would claim it was haunted and/or try for a higher price than like 3 bucks. If anything it's a crappy paper mache mask.

The ebay seller has no real motive to sell forgeries, as you can see it is from an ebay store that specializes in vintage photos.
 
i dont think they had photoshop in the 1920's.
Click to expand...

ummmmm, they didn't have computers either. In order for this picture to be seen on the web someone must have scanned it.

But if you say its real then all those erasure marks around the right side of the face must be something I alone can see. the rest of the picture gives away the tampering.
I think you should buy it
Peace
=^..^=217
 
Wonder if the mouth was minus teeth and filled with a big chaw of chewing tobacco?
 
He's wearing glasses. Those aren't erasure marks, it's a glare and I don't, frankly, see anything weird about the picture at all. No mask, nothing. There is a glare off his glasses as the left lens catches the light. The equipment that took this picture is obviously not high tech. It may have been at that point in time, but it was very imperfect. He appears to be wearing a cap that is all but washed out by overexposure, and he has a very bushy mustache.
He appears to be a butcher or baker.
 
what's in the window?
looks like a baby alien in a jar. and to the left of that, a face attached to something. maybe it was halloween.
 
Erasure marks? Homer Simpson? Baby alien in a jar? :!:

Someone's gotta enlarge the head of this thing.
 
Sorry-----I enlarged it myself on ACDSee but it's still hard to tell what's on it's head...although it does appear to be masculine around the bottom of the face....jaw, etc.

(However so does my ex-mother-in-law.........)
 
wow not sure i was prepared to see it that large... let me see if i can fine tune that at all for a better image.
 
Breezilla said:
... Dr. Robotnik?! :shock:
Click to expand...
Haha, good call, it does actually look like a real life version of Dr. Robotnik! But I think amea_gari is on the money, I can definitely see a man in a flap cap wearing glasses and sporting a big, bushy beard.
 
But those are definitely the hips of a woman, and the legs look more feminine than you'd normally see in a man, too.
 
The 'Colossus Of New York' in drag? Seriously, the face looks a great deal like that of the killer robot featured in that 50's Sci-Fi 'classic', and was the first thing I thought of on clicking the link. Pretty strange. One wouldn't think that seemingly down-to-earth rural types would be capable of ( or be particularly interested in ) constructing elaborate Homer Simpson/Kaiser Wilhelm masks. D'oh! indeed.
 
the more i look at it the more i see cucumbers on its eyes, like a beauty mask. LOL.

I dont have a refined picture, it didnt work :( sorry.

It's interesting you bring up Kaiser Wilhelm. The ebay seller dates it around the 20's. (I would assume he knows what he is talking about since it is an ebay store that consists entirely of vintage photographs.) maybe you're on to something. I know that was probably a popular person to poke fun at back then. Maybe its someone dressed as KW in drag for a party?
 
The mustache looks like a pony tail pulled around her head from her left hand side and held between her top lip and nose. thus deformed mouth exagerated by shadow.

grandfathers jacket, cap and thick glasses with sun reflecting in them.

Her hands in the apron, like a man would put hands in pockets.

I think its a youngish girl making fun of her father or granfather as kids do.

either that or her mother was her aunt.
 
mah said:
The mustache looks like a pony tail pulled around her head from her left hand side and held between her top lip and nose. thus deformed mouth exagerated by shadow.
Click to expand...

oh, yeah!!! good catch.

i also keep thinking of some gross thing my grandmother had that she called a skull cap. it was flesh-colored, very thin, and fit tightly over the head. she never used it, but i think she said people slept in them. but my memory of it is fuzzy.
 
the window:

a figure in a jar.
to the right of that is a hand, palm out, fingers curled.

 
anne of 28 days said:
mah said:
The mustache looks like a pony tail pulled around her head from her left hand side and held between her top lip and nose. thus deformed mouth exagerated by shadow.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I'd like to test this theory. Any reader of this thread with a pony tail. please post a picture of your recreation of this image. complete with silly glasses and cap.

:lol:
 
anne of 28 days said:
the window:

a figure in a jar.
to the right of that is a hand, palm out, fingers curled.



To me it looks like a two tallon's or clawed fingers reaching around the jar. Just above that jar there is a shadow with two tiny specs of light that look like demonic eyes.

Maybe her father caught her impression of him! :twisted:
Click to expand...
 
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