Lost Gallery: Back Page - Elegant Portraits

Elegant.

Usually, studio portraits aren't very interesting. Actually, they are quite boring. They are stiff and two dimensional, vain and shallow. Often they aren't even good representations of the person in the portrait at all, and certainly not good examples of the photographer's art.

Photograph collectors drudge through endless piles and pages of lifeless and superficial abandoned studio captures of ancestors and unknowns. We become quite practiced at spotting a portrait that is warm from the glow of the person otherwise long gone. On such rare turns, we find a photographer and subject working in a delightful duet, creating a portrait that speaks of character, of atmosphere, of presence.

It's a photograph that is not just an image. It's a feeling, a warmth, a person. A memory worth keeping.

It is an elegant photograph.

There are too few portraits like this.

Thousands have been reviewed over the years. Whether Cabinet Card or CDV, loose, framed or in easel-backed mats, here are the scant few really elegant portraits that have settled into an honored place in LOST GALLERY.

When I grow up, I'm going to kick your slats out.

There'll be a change in the weather, a change in the sea.
Before long there'll be a change in me.
My walk will be diff'rent, my talk and my name,
Ain't nothin' about me is gonna to be the same.
I'm goin' to change my way of livin', boys,
and if that ain't enough,
Well then I'll change the way I strut my stuff,
Nobody wants you when you're old and gray.
There'll be some changes made today!
There'll be some changes made.

Words & Music by Billy Higgins & W. Benton Overstreet, 1922

For two hours every morning... and evening...

So sad that the lasting memory of this woman would be that her photo sold for fifty cents at a flea market. Very sad.

Ms Showalter, CEO of the bellwether software and web-management company, SoftWeb Inc. knew how to ward off the hostile takeover by some of her own board members. She met with them privately, one by one in back of the corporate offices and beat the crap out of them.

I know. I know. These two are not studio shots but they are such fine portraits, I had to include them.

Not often is this much character captured in a studio photograph, but when it happens, it is superlative. Wouldn’t you have loved to ask her just one question?

Look at that smile. She is about to burst into a laughter that will permeate your being. There is a humor about to envelop the room, an inner beauty that is an adventure, a love that immerses your heart in indelible joy and anticipation.

Look at that pose. She is ready to spring into a dance. Holding still is not in her repertoire. She is full of embraces and faces and affection. She would be comfortable in the garden swing or astride a palomino.

I would have loved to have shared an afternoon tea or a six-pack with her. Oh, the stories she could tell, the laughter she could share, the memories she could make.

I never knew her but I miss her terribly.

Now, THAT my friends, is photography.

PAGE TWO is coming soon!

The most popular photographs An album of the most requested photographs in the Lost Gallery.

Area 51 and a Half You are probably not authorized to see these.

Don't take my picture! Oh! You DID didn't you! This is a collection of photographs that disappear on the way home from the photo processing shop.

And don't miss
Cabinet Card Gallery
One Man's Treasure
Penny Tales
Square America
Tattered and Lost
Vernacular Photography
The best
FOUND PHOTOGRAPH
sites on the web.
And for postcards try
THE DAILY POSTCARD.

THE KIDS It is always a mystery how a photograph of any of these precious children could end up lost or abandoned. Here are a few. You will probably say "Ooh..." at least once.