A while back Four Fat Chicks became Tap-Repeatedly. Some may not know but there was a lot of back and forth behind the scenes about the name of the site. Everyone on staff was invited to give their ideas and opinions. Not that we wouldn't have anyway. [Image Can Not Be Found]
If it is one thing we have here in abundance it is opinions. We don't stamp our feet about it but no one is shy either.
In the course of brainstorming names I came up with Hungry Maude. While it didn't make the final cut I liked it so much I registered it on Go Daddy.
Fast forward several months.
Now a friend and I have put up a tumblr photo site of old black and white snapshots taken from my friend's sizeable and impressive collection. Together we edit and add short captions and post them. We have been fussing with the site for a few weeks in our spare time and now have gone public with it. Since this is where Hungry Maude was concieved, it's only fitting to stage her coming out here. Please take a look when you get a minute. We are planning on posting a few new photos a week, as well as anything that eventually piques our interest.
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The nice, clean format works really well and the pictures are lovely. It's strange how old cameras -old technology- took photographs with more natural personality in them than any modern camera has now; with their crystal clear focusing, perfect exposures and smile detection. The margin for error is so small now that happy accidents rarely happen any more. I bought a Holga toy camera about 6 months ago with a plastic lens and all sorts of manufacturing defects and the pictures it takes are wonderful. It's been such a long time though since I got actual film developed never mind b&w medium format film (which is totally new to me)!
If it is one thing we have here in abundance it is opinions. We don't stamp our feet about it but no one is shy either.
Oh, sweet-natured and kindly Scout, how you understate.
I hope lots of people visit Hungry Maude, because those pictures are stark and beautiful. They remind me of some of the Dust Bowl photos I've seen - are any from that era, or doth my eyes deceive?
Please post some more soon. I know little about photography and have zero skill with it, but I love looking at beautiful pictures like this.
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
Nice photos. I especailly like the one of the woman in an apron standing by the flowers. We went through all the ones we ever took recently and I regret that there are so few of my parents, grandparents in everyday activities. The ones we do have were mostly taken with a Brownie camera and therefore not sharp at all. We just don't realize what they are going to mean in later life. Nice site.
Thanks all.
The photos were collected over the last 10-12 years from estate sales, thrift stores, eBay, etc. I was amazed when my friend told me how families would sell ALL their scrapbooks, boxes of photos, the works. Usually it was a distant relative who didn't care. She has even tracked down some of the families and figured out who is who.
Steerpike I don't think any are from specific dustbowl areas. Definitly many were taken during that time. The yards are packed dirt...really small homes...
There really is something about the old cameras and printing processes that are pretty much lost forever.There is a kind of mystery to them, a rawness and haunting elegance I love. Anyway, there's a ton of these kind of photos in the collection and we're going to be posting pretty regularly now that we are up and running.
Thanks everyone for the encouragment.
I miss old photographs. There's something cold about the precision and "perfection" of our modern, digital cameras. It fails to capture the mysterious or the mundane; or as Hungry Maude itself says:
"For a 60th of a second they give all they have. And then it’s over and we are left to wonder what really happened."
Nice site [Image Can Not Be Found]
If being wrong's a crime I'm serving forever
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Ok, guys, I could not prevent myself from inserting a derail. [Image Can Not Be Found] It's a photo site so I should only be blamed, like 50%.
Last night I recognized myself among the subjects. Unlikely to reach the artistic caliber of Maude's, this one posts reader submissions. If anyone is curious, this is me.
(sorry, Scout, but I just had to do it).
Ha. [Image Can Not Be Found]
I was looking at that site the other day.
On a more or less serious note, here is a kinda of third cousin site to Hungry Maude.
"What is it about the slam of a screen door?"
All the years we were raising our kids up north...the sound of that wooden screen door dozens of times a day. Why it never got on our nerves is something I'll never understand. Maybe that sound meant that all was well with the kids. They were safely home, or they were going out to play. Today parents get that sort of notice about the status of their kids from baby monitors and other electronic devices. The screen door is better than them all.
Interesting how the recorded moments of someone else's lives can bring our own memories to the surface. No screen doors here. Sad.
Terrific images and site. "Feed" Maude often.
"…you just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake."
Pokey, I wonder the same thing about the scratched out face. All I know for sure is it was acquired that way. It does remind me of some married roommates I had. After a fight one of them went around and cut out the other one's face from all the pics in the house, even the snapshots on the fridge. It was kinda spooky.
Hey Scout, how does your friend acquire these photos? Buy them? Attend estate sales? Are there clubs of some sort for collectors? I can see how one would really become enamored of collecting old BW photos like these. It's kind of like a window into another world.
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
Jen said:
That's just one step away from cutting the eyes out of photos and pasting them to the dead carcasses in your basement lair.
Ahem.
[Image Can Not Be Found]
I always wondered what happened to all those little faces…
Steerpike, she apparently bought and sold a lot of photos on eBay. Also haunted garage sales, vintage/antique shops and estate sales. There is a community of collectors out there too. She has a scary amount of photos in boxes in her basement.
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