Our Photographic " BESTS ", Superlatives From Ladies Tea

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
Remember ' Superlatives '? " BEST " ? ' Best Smile ", Best Personality ", well, picking our own, from Time.

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Best Chess Game

Feel free, please to post your own picks and invent a category; have had a file of these forever. " BEST ", photographs from Time. For me, it ranges from pontoon bridges through children and dogs, stops at a wedding, back to Belle Plain, enjoys a chess match, looks in at the White House and travels back to the war. The photos which get you, who know why. Maybe stopping to figure it out, makes them less dear.

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Best Bridal Couple

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Best Man and Dog

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Best Belle Plain

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Best Boo

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Best Sisters

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Best Burnished Rows Of Steel ( 2nd Rhode Island )

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Best Bandwagon

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Best Look-alike Dog

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Best Cat

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Best pontoon

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Best Chicken

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Best Smile

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Best Elegant Profile

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Best Pregnant Mother

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Best Mittens

Severely out of time, rats. Have so many more. Needless to say, Cont'd.
 
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Remember ' Superlatives '? " BEST " ? ' Best Smile ", Best Personality ", well, picking our own, from Time.

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Best Chess Game

Feel free, please to post your own picks and invent a category; have had a file of these forever. " BEST ", photographs from Time. For me, it ranges from pontoon bridges through children and dogs, stops at a wedding, back to Belle Plain, enjoys a chess match, looks in at the White House and travels back to the war. The photos which get you, who know why. Maybe stopping to figure it out, makes them less dear.

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Best Bridal Couple

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Best Man and Dog

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Best Belle Plain

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Best Boo

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Best Sisters

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Best Burnished Rows Of Steel ( 2nd Rhode Island )

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Best Bandwagon

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Best Look-alike Dog

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Best Cat

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Best pontoon

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Best Chicken

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Best Smile

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Best Elegant Profile

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Best Pregnant Mother

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Best Mittens

Severely out of time, rats. Have so many more. Needless to say, Cont'd.

But I'm guessing there is no best "hidden mother," because they're all so amusing, each in her own way....
http://www.civilwartalk.com/threads/hidden-mothers-behind-the-bizarre.118375/#post-1211984
 
:D

"You charge how much for one photo?! Oh. You are gettin' everything of mine in this dang photo. Make you earn that money!"

:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

Well he is the "ordnance sergeant" after all. I think that means he might be in charge of weapons and ammo, so he wanted to get all his stuff in the photo to impress the ladies back home and get his money's worth, too!
 
I love that in the picture of the little girl with her "matching" doll - it appears the doll is standing on a pedestal as well. I like the "hand holding" of the adorable family.

You have to love how staged some period photographs were like the girl and the doll. I think the art of portrait taking is a dying art and that's what makes all these well posed photographs so special and often times endearing. I absolutely LOVE the 'adorable family' shot. So much love and devotion - and perhaps even a touch of sadness radiate through in that photograph.
 
I don’t mean to make light of this lady’s obvious discomfort, but this may be the all-time best photo of a soldier with his dog and wife (in that order).

A participant in a recent Civil War Facebook group discussion suggested another plausible explanation for this lady's unhappy expression that I had not considered before. Notice that instead of sitting straight in her chair and wearing her hat, she is sitting at the side of the chair and holding her hat in her lap. Maybe the photographer had asked her to move aside and remove her hat because she was blocking his view of the officer standing behind her, the Facebook member suggested. (As a result, the officer got to show off the fancy trim on his sleeve.) If I were an officer's wife who had bothered to dress for a portrait in the uncomfortable setting of an Army camp, that would annoy me. Even so, I still think the dog figures in this somehow. The standing officer seems to be looking at the seated officer and his dog, who, giving his paw for the photograph, is a good boy. Maybe they had just told him so.

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Ha! Had forgotten this thread from last March! Thanks for bringing it back up- love how we all have different favorites, as it should be! What a big snore the world would be if each of us were exactly alike.
 
A participant in a recent Civil War Facebook group discussion suggested another plausible explanation for this lady's unhappy expression that I had not considered before. Notice that instead of sitting straight in her chair and wearing her hat, she is sitting at the side of the chair and holding her hat in her lap. Maybe the photographer had asked her to move aside and remove her hat because she was blocking his view of the officer standing behind her, the Facebook member suggested. (As a result, the officer got to show off the fancy trim on his sleeve.) If I were an officer's wife who had bothered to dress for a portrait in the uncomfortable setting of an Army camp, that would annoy me. Even so, I still think the dog figures in this somehow. The standing officer seems to be looking at the seated officer and his dog, who, giving his paw for the photograph, is a good boy. Maybe they had just told him so.

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You know, that's extremely plausible! What woman of the day held her lovely hat? She is absolutely posed leaning to the side and they tended to not do that much, either. Photographer may have centered the whole photo around the officers and dog, excluding the wife, pretty much- annoying? I'll say. How sharp of that person, @LoyaltyOfDogs !

I'm convinced all these photos we know so well have siblings somewhere. It was such a pain, setting up their gear. Why would they do it only to take one photograph? There are others, like the bridge photo on the Pamunkey where all the studies of the same subject were saved- you see a swimming soldier in the background in some, not others. Wouldn't you love to see the rest of this group, before someone suggested " Hey! Does your dog shake hands? "
 
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