Sepia Saturday - Castles

Today's Sepia Saturday suggestion is about castles.

My first thought was my own shot of Scarborough Castle from the year that I spent in England.

Ah, those were the days...

But this blog is about collections of found photographs for the LOST GALLERY.

So I wandered a bit through the archives to see what there was that could be called a castle. Most of what I found were pictures of things that WERE castles or at least stone buildings.

...except for a couple or three ...

On the hill in the distance, Scarborough Castle.

First thing I found were these three shots from my favorite collection of negatives, rescued from a musty basement in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Most of the nearly 600 35mm negatives were about Bassingbourn Airforce Base, aircraft and personnel in England around the winter of 1944. But our photographer had some leave time and toured the area with his camera. Some 200 of the shots are of sights that interested him as he wandered about. Among these I found some shots of English castles.

The first three are of Warwick Castle on River Avon and environs. You can tell that he gave some thought to these shots.

The next eight are of Buckingham Palace which I suppose qualifies as a castle.

I suppose you have seen many, many tourist photographs of Buckingham Palace but, consider this: This was the winter of 1944.

Now lets look at another photograph that I almost missed.

Some time ago I rescued an album of photographs that apparently belonged to a Frau Fritz Wasserman, in Germany. To see the complete set go HERE on FLICKR.

The batch even included her 1943 passport photograph.

There are many personal and family photographs in the album.

This one is labeled on the reverse 1957 Friihjahn 1957 Schruetzingen An alert follower on Flickr confirmed that building in the background of this snapshot is a wing of Schruetzingen Castle in the German state (Bundesland) of Baden-Württemberg.

The sculpture is one of five in the central pool of Schruetzingen Gardens. Four of sculptures depict a cherub sitting on a swan. The pool was apparently drained at the time of the photo with the child standing on the back of the swan. There is usually a stream of water coming from the beak of the swan also.

Here is a photograph from another angle from the fine collection of Flickr member yblwinfl

And HERE is one of the other three.

Now, lets dig out the old slide projector and show some slides from the vacation. These are certainly tourist slides taken by fascinated amateurs. The three are unidentified but MIGHT have been castles at one time. We may never know, unless someone recognizes where and what it is, and then lets us in on the secret.

And next, here are some plain, black and white snapshots.

The two photographs on the left and right are of the Kaiser's Palace in Trier according to their inscriptions. The above photograph has no identification and came from a different album entirely, but it has the same broken arch showing.

Here we have three photographs of a ruined castle of a different sort. It was three stories high and had more than 400 rooms. Built around the 11th century, it was home to a tribe of Native Americans of the Pueblo culture for over 200 years.

The huge site in Northwestern New Mexico, is named the "Aztec Ruins National Monument" which is quite odd as it has absolutely no connection to the Aztecs of central Mexico.

These three abandoned photographs were finally identified after a bit of research and comparisons to other pictures of early American dwellings. So alas, it is not a REAL castle as we think of castles today, but it was to those who lived there, sheltered from the wild animals, the elements and the marauders of neighboring tribes. A castle for the times, nearly a millennium in the past.

And here is another of my own photographs, not a found photograph. Still, I would be totally remiss if I neglected to include a mention of this castle.

On Flickr, there are almost six thousand photographs of this structure/sculpture. So this may come as no surprise. This is my photograph of Bishop Castle.

It is near Wetmore or Rye or Beulah, Colorado, (depending on which account you read) on highway 165. The curiosity is under construction by a Mr. Jim Bishop. It has taken him forty years to get this far. It is a project envisioned and assembled by Mr. Bishop in a nearly single-handed effort.

Bishop is a well known American Rights advocate and part-time scary nutcase. His politics are heartfelt and genuine but his approach to communicating those values strains his credibility somewhat. While I was there, he climbed upon a flat bed trailer and admonished the thirty or so tourists wandering about by shouting: “WAKE UP PEOPLE!”

And then he began what was probably a speech developed over decades of doing the same thing. The first paragraph included mentions of constitutions, goodbooks, guns and pitchforks.

His views probably parallel mine in many ways about corrupt politics and handbaskets, and we would probably have enjoyed listening to his tirade denouncing all politicians and describing his own visions of the future. But unfortunately, this sort of harmless zealot often generates many not-so-harmless enemies with opposing views, light-years in other directions. This being Colorado and a gun-totin’, bomb throwin’ society, I did not feel completely safe in the small crowd of milling spectators.

Today might have been the day the orbits of opposing paranoid positions reached coincidental apogee.

If you are curious, there is more...

Roadside America
Wiki's version
Additional Interesting Information

Three of the many signs around the "castle" grounds.

Today's Sepia Saturday suggestion is about castles.

So click back to the Sepia Saturday suggestion page and see what the others are doing.

Or maybe you'd prefer just a list of all (well, most) of the categories and subjects and album pages in LOST GALLERY! Well, here it is!

A to C

Advance to the Rear The Rear View
Aircraft
Aircraft – Biplanes
Aircraft – Connie, the Lockheed Constellation
Aliens and Mystery – Area Fifty-One and a Half
Animals – Gone to the Chickens
Animals – The Pets by themselves
Animals – Posing on a Pony
Area Fifty-One and a Half – Don’t Look Now
Automobiles – Car Bumpers
Automobiles – Car Running Boards
Baby Buggy
Beach – Itinerant Beach Photographer (page 01)
Beach – Itinerant Beach Photographer (page 02)
Beach – The Old Days
Beach – The Slide Show
Beach – The Girlfriend
Biplane
Bows
Boys in Dresses
Bridges
Bumpers – Car Bumpers
Cabinet Cards
Camera – Photographs containing a camera
Carte-de-Viste
C'est la Guerre – Photographs about the wars
Chain Chain Chain – People doing the same things
Chair, Fringed
Chair, One Armed
Cheesecake
Chickens - Gone to the Chickens
Children – Boys in Dresses
Children – A Child on the Front Steps
Children - Girls and their Dolls
Children – Kid in a Tub
Children – Mobile Toys
Children - On Running Boards
Children – Slide Show
Children – Trios - In groups of Three
Christmas – in found photographs
Cities – Unknown Street Scenes
Class Pictures – School Days!
Clothing – Bows
Clothing – Costumes
Clothing – Cowboy Outfits
Clothing – Boys in Dresses
Clothing – Furs – The Dead Animal Society
Clothing – Grass Skirts
Clothing – Hats
Clothing – Jodhpurs
Clothing – Saddle Shoes
Clothing – Sailor Tailored Fashion
Clothing – Swimwear – At the Beach
Clothing – Uniforms – Girl & her Guy in Uniform
Clothing – Uniforms - Our Man at the Front
Connie, the Lockheed Constellation
Costumes
Couples – A Girl and her Guy in Uniform
Fake Fight

C to P

Fringed Chair
Furniture and Props – One Armed Chair
Furniture and Props – Props and Backdrops
Furniture and Props – The Fringed Chair
Furniture and Props – Wicker
Girl in a Boat
Girlfriend and the Car
Girlfriend at the beach
Goat Cart
Gone to the Chickens – Snaps including a chicken
Grass Skirt Gallery
Groups – Chain Chain Chain – People lined up
Groups – Class Pictures
Hats – Where everyone is wearing a hat
Hats – Really Big hats
Homes – We Call it Home
House – Our House
Itinerant Street Photographer
Itinerant Child Photographer With PONY!
Jodhpurs
Laundry – People and Clothes Lines
Lurker
Music – Trombones
Music Makers
Novelty Photo Booth – Collection
Novelty Photo Booth – Examination
The Office Typewriters and business
On a Bumper
On a Car
On a Rock
On a Running Board
One-Armed Chair
Parade – Parties, Parades and Picnics
Parties – Parties, Parades and Picnics
People Stacks
Personal Pinups – the best girl. (Page One)
Personal Pinups – the best girl. (Page Two)
Personal Pinups – Girlfriend at the beach
Pets – The animals by themselves
Photo Mask
PhotoBombing – Pranks to ruin a photo
Photography – Photographs containing a camera
Photography – The Photo Mask
Photography – Tinted Photograph
Photography – Polaroids
Photography Errors – Lurker
Photography Errors – photographer's Shadow
Photography Errors – The Double Exposure
Photography Errors – Unauthorized Photographs
Picnics – Parties, Parades and Picnics
Places to Go - More about where than who.
Places – Our House - With people in front
Places – We Call it Home - More houses
Pony – Posing on a Pony

P to W

Poses – Advance to the Rear!
Poses - Belly Down, Heads Up! (A really odd pose.)
Poses – Cheesecake
Poses – Fake Fight
Poses – Girl in a Boat
Poses – In a Tree
Poses – Kid in a Tub
Poses – On a Bumper
Poses – On a Car
Poses – On a Pony
Poses – On a Running Board
Poses – Out Sitting on a Rock
Poses – People with Signs.
Poses – Personal Pinup
Poses – The Rear View
Poses – Sleeping people
Poses – Stacks of People People on People
Props and Backdrops
Rock – People out sitting on a rock
Running Boards - Automobiles
Running Boards with Children
Saddle Shoes
Sailor Tailored Clothing
Signs – People posing with signs.
Sleeping People
Sneaky Snaps–People not posing at all
Telephone - About telephones and operators
Things – Typewriter – A Modern Antique
Things – Telephones
Things – Watermelon in the picture
Tinted Photograph
Tintypes
Toys – Children and their Mobile Toys
Toys - Girls and their Dolls
Transportation – Aircraft
Transportation – Automobile Bumpers
Transportation – Automobile Running Boards
Transportation – Baby Buggy
Transportation – Biplanes
Transportation – Lockheed Constellation
Transportation – Wheelbarrow
Tree Thing
Trombones!
Types of Photographs – Cabinet Cards
Types of Photographs – CDV (Carte-de Viste)
Types of Photographs – Photobooth
Types of Photographs – Polaroids
Types of Photographs – Tintypes
Typewriter – A Modern Antique
Unauthorized Photographs – Sneaky snaps
Uniformed Man – Our Man at the Front
Vehicles – Biplane
Vehicles – Lockheed Constellation
Vehicles – Wheelbarrow
Washday Blues – Of Love and Laundry
Watermelon
Wheelbarrow
Wicker Chairs
Wicker Furniture
World War One