Curio Cabinet / Photo Curio

It's Flashback Friday and also Play Basketball Day! Enjoy these sports-focused curios. 
Oof, that’s gotta hurt! The above photo, taken in 1954, shows American boxing legend Floyd Patterson cracking a left, or performing a surprise left hook punch, into the face of fellow boxer Jesse Turner, during a bout in Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway Arena. Turner lifts his right forearm to block, putting his swollen left eye into full view. The tops of audience member’s heads are just barely visible, beyond the ring. Patterson, already a 1952 Olympic gold medalist, went on to win his bout against Turner, and to become a two-time world heavyweight champion. Unfortunately, Turner was not as lucky. The promising young boxer from St. Louis scored an impressive 36 knockouts during his 62-bout career, but passed away at age 29 for unknown reasons. Patterson retired from boxing in 1972. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Committee Hall of Fame in 1987, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991. A knockout athletic career, indeed.
 

[Image description: A black and white photo of boxer Floyd Patterson punching at boxer Jesse Turner’s face with his left glove. ] Credit & copyright: AP
 

It's Flashback Friday and Black Friday! In honor of the holiday buying season, enjoy these curios all about shopping and consumer crazes. 
Many of us may think of a hotel or gas station shop as just places that help us get from one location to the next, but for Stephen Shore, these are the perfect artistic subjects. Prior to the first publication of his Uncommon Places in 1982, Shore was considered a pioneer in color photography, and a prodigy who sold his first work to the Museum of Modern Art in New York at the age of 14. With this series, Shore was also the first to capture unseen scenes in semi-industrial American towns and cities in the latter half of the 20th century. In the above photo, he shows off his composition skill, centering an orange and green palette amid trucks, produce, a muscle car, and well, wood pallets. These days, it's not hard to find Shore, who turns 71 today, reinventing the food or cat picture on Instagram and continuing ceaselessly to push the line between landscape photographer, photojournalist, and curious traveler.

 

Below: more shots from Uncommon Places.
 

Image credit & copyright: Stephen Shore
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of the introduction of the push-button telephone on this day in 1963, enjoy these curios all about communication. 
Say cheese! If the above image seems primitive in these days of instant online photo sharing, that's because it's the very first camera phone image ever taken.In a true melding of technologies, Philippe Kahn was at the hospital with his pregnant wife in 1997 when he hacked a Motorola Startac cell phone and a Casio QV-10 digital camera, and connected the two to his laptop. Throwing the devices together with just a soldering iron and cut cables from his car phone, Kahn was able to hold his newborn daughter Sophie in one arm and snap a shareable photo with the other. His "21st-century Polaroid" was emailed to over 2,000 family, friends, and business associates, with dozens of replies wondering how he managed to share the image so quickly. Kahn's baby photo forever changed the way we share photos, moving film, prints, and albums in the digital age. As for Kahn, who later founded LightSurf and FullPower, he can celebrate that June 11th morning as the serendipitous day when both his child and a new tech innovation were born!
 

Image credit & copyright: Philippe Kahn
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of Origami Day, enjoy these curios all about paper. 

British artist Christopher Bucklow may not be a ghost hunter, but his series of Guest photos sure are supernaturally brilliant. Bucklow, who turns 61 this week, is part of a resurgence of "camera-less" photographers in the U.K. who use non-traditional methods to produce photogram images on light-sensitive photo paper. For his Guests series, Bucklow had subjects stand in front of aluminum foil sheets, where he would trace their silhouettes, then poke thousands of pinholes through the metallic paper. From there, he held the aluminum sheets up to sunlight, so the photographic paper would capture the exposure. Depending on the quality of the natural light, the images either appeared blue in the final shot, like the above figure, or developed red or green glows. The effect is otherworldly, like half-appearing apparitions, or personnel materializing through a Star Trek transporter. Beam us up, Bucklow!

 

Below: more Guests and Bucklow at work.
 

Image credit & copyright: Chris Bucklow
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of King Tut Day, the anniversary of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, enjoy these curios all about unearthed treasures. 
This handkerchief may be delicate, but the suffragette featured on it was anything but. Mary Raleigh Richardson made waves when she damaged a Diego Velazquez painting depicting the goddess Venus at the National Gallery in London in 1914. By destroying the iconic mythological woman, Richardson hoped to send a protest message against the British government's "destruction" of suffragette leaders. The above print is one of several from photographer Amy Jorgensen's series, Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue. While researching her own suffragette great aunt, Edna Berg, Jorgensen unearthed a rich collection of surveillance images featuring early 20th-century female activists. She commemorates these pioneers in cyanotype prints, a technique made famous by Anna Atkins, the first woman to produce a photograph. Handkerchiefs provide a base for the prints that's decisively rooted in suffragette history, as the imprisoned women would embroider them to record the injustices they faced. Said Jorgensen, "In pairing the surveillance images of militant suffragettes, the wedding rhyme [of the series' title], and the delicacy of a handkerchief, I was interested in creating a collision point for patriarchal structures." We think Aunt Edna would approve!
 
Image credit & copyright: Amy Jorgensen
 

Welcome to the real Halloweentown. The Spirit of Halloweentown is a festival based on the cult classic Disney Channel movie Halloweentown, and it takes place every year in the actual location that the movie was filmed—St. Helens, Oregon. Fans of the movie will appreciate that the giant pumpkin statue featured in the story now serves as the centerpiece for St. Helens’ festival, as in the photo above. It stands surrounded by other spooky decorations, from hanging bats to skeleton guards. The pumpkin is lit on the first Saturday of October, and stays lit until the end of the month. Since Halloweentown turned St. Helens into a must-travel destination, several spooky businesses have popped up in the area, such as a Haunted Hotel and a Museum of Peculiarities and Oddities. There is also a self-guided tour that passes through shooting locations for Halloweentown and Twilight, which used the town in its production as well. Several Twilight stars have also made appearances at the festival and participated in the lighting of the pumpkin. How's that for a star-studded, spooky celebration?
 
[Image description: St. Helens’ famous pumpkin statue stands surrounded by other Halloween decorations.] Credit & copyright: City of St. Helens

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of Celebration of the Mind Day, enjoy these curios all about innovation and discovery. Biomimicry at its best. What looks like an insect weaving a tangled web is actually velcro doing what it does best: hooking onto itself. The resemblance to nature is no coincidence; velcro inventor George de Mestral modeled his product after burrs, which would cling to his clothes during walks in the woods. This image lets us see velcro's mechanism up close, with the hook-covered strip latching right onto the tiny loops on its complementary strip. Photographer Tracy Anderson captured the 94-times-magnified miniature scene using a Nikon SMZ1500 Stereomicroscope. As we begin a new year, we hope you can channel the sticking power of velcro. As for us, we're off to "adhere" to our new year's learning resolutions!
 
Image credit & copyright: Tracy Anderson
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of National Dessert Day, enjoy these curios all about sweet treats. 
Num, num, num. September the 10th witnessed this year's Moon Festival, a tradition celebrated by East Asian cultures on the 15th day of every eighth moon—and humans weren't the only ones getting in on the fun. The furry guys shown above, semi-aquatic rodents called coypu, are nibbling on special mooncakes gifted to them by their handlers at China's Nanning Zoo. While typical mooncakes consist of baked or steamed pastries loaded with fillings like lotus paste, salted egg yolk, fruits, nuts, and seeds, these rascals' treats contained a medley of fish and fruit suitable for their restricted diets. The Moon Festival is defined by family gatherings, lighted lanterns, and hearty meals. Celebrated since the Tang Dynasty (618–907 C.E.), the tradition honors the moon goddess Chang'e, who guzzled a potent elixir that tragically whisked her off to the moon before her husband's very eyes. It's certainly a tale that makes you cherish those closest to the heart—with and without fur!
 

Image credit & copyright: Yu Jing
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of the anniversary of New York City’s groundbreaking law banning cigarettes in bars and restaurants, enjoy these curios all about health and wellness. 
Some gym memberships come at a high price, though few can claim the ill-fated elitism of a Titanic gym-goer. Among the many luxuries available to first-class passengers aboard the Titanic was a gymnasium fitted with the latest in strength-training and cardio machines, cycling bikes, and an electric camel which was reportedly "good for the liver." In 1912, gym exercise was treated as a leisurely health benefit, unlike many of today's intense sessions aimed at physical transformations. Gym sessions were separated by gender, with women using the facilities from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and men from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. The old-timey trainer and manager of the space was Mr. Thomas McCawley, who would have collected a daily admittance fee of one shilling a head (about $4 today). As the ship went down on April 14th, McCawley held his post at the gym. While we admire his dedication, we're glad there's no chance of being lost at sea while working out at a Planet Fitness.

 

Image credit & copyright:
Robert Welch, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of The Phantom of the Opera’s literary debut, enjoy these curios all about opera. 
The future looks so bright in Australia, we gotta wear shades. One of the most dazzling displays of fireworks on New Year's Eve has happened for over 20 years at Sydney Harbor—but it was never meant to be an international spectacle. The Sydney Harbor Bridge was first used as a fireworks centerpiece in 1986 in an event honoring the 75th Anniversary Review of the Royal Australian Navy. 10 years later, the New Year's Eve show was first televised; today, over one billion people watched the event across the globe. To be kind to those with little ones and early bedtimes, there are actually two shows every December 31st: the 9 p.m. Family Fireworks and the Midnight Fireworks. The events typically last anywhere from 12-25 minutes; the explosions are timed with a soundtrack, and their colors are arranged for a theme each year. Examples of themes include"City of Color," "#SydNYE," and the 2017 theme, "Wonder." Plans included a rainbow waterfall off of the bridge to celebrate the legalization of same-sex marriage in Australia, and nearly nine tons of fireworks lighting up the night sky. That's a whole lot of fanfare at the bridge to a new year!

 

Below: Relive 2016 any day with a video of the epic Sydney midnight light show.
 

Image credit & copyright: Silver Spirit Sydney
 

It's Flashback Friday! In memory of Queen Elizabeth II, enjoy these curios all about European history. 
Death can be overwhelming—but for English photographer Henry Peach Robinson, who passed away in December of 1901, it was a difficult subject worthy of photography. Fading Away shows a family at the bedside of a fatally-ill daughter, with all of the worry and pain that would occur in such an event. To create the photograph, considered an early form of photomontage, Robinson combined multiple negatives to form a final staged image. Unfortunately, he faced an uphill battle with this piece: the subject matter was considered too morbid and taboo for Victorian sensibilities, as was its "artificiality." Yet he received some of the highest praise in the land when Prince Albert became a fan and ordered this print, alongside many other Robinson works. Even with the newfound popularity, Robinson continued to face critical dissent among the ranks of the Royal Photographic Society in England, where he had to argue fiercely for photography as an art form. Considering how popular photography and photo manipulation are nowadays, it looks like Robinson had the last laugh!
 

Image credit & copyright: Metropolitan Museum of Art
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of National Sudoku Day, enjoy these curios all about games. 
Producers of the show Twenty One had a formula for success: they rigged the game. The quiz show, which ran from 1956 to 1958, was hosted by Jack Barry (center). Charles Van Doren (right) was a star contestant. Twenty One had a simple format: a returning champion and an opponent answered trivia questions; the one who earned 21 points first won. The first episode of Twenty One wasn't fixed—and was a complete flop. The contestants couldn't answer most of the questions. Geritol, the program's sponsor, was furious. After that, producers tightly scripted the show, telling contestants ahead of time when to answer correctly and when to fumble. At the show's peak, Van Doren, a Columbia professor with All-American good looks, challenged the reigning champion, and finally beat him. But rumors of game show rigging finally caught up with Twenty One, and it was cancelled in 1958. Van Doren went from being a celebrity darling to one of the most unpopular men in America. He was fired from his job, and spent his life trying to escape his notoriety. When it comes to game shows, the scolding old adage rings true: Cheaters never prosper.
 

Image credit & copyright: Library of Congress, Public Domain
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of the first ATM in America, which started operation on this day in 1969, enjoy these curios all about money. 
These men had good reason to look unhappy about where they stood, literally and figuratively. This photo shows unemployed gentlemen in line outside a soup kitchen in 1931, just two years after the stock market crash which started the Great Depression in the U.S.A.—the worst economic collapse in modern history. It all began on October 24, 1929, in what came to be known as "Black Tuesday." When the Dow fell an unusual eight points that morning, panicked sellers sold too many shares too quickly. The market lost a massive amount of value in a very short time. Fistfights even broke out on the trading room floor and police had to be called. When banks tried to help by buying shares of stocks, people took it as a sign that the banks were rattled, which led to too many people attempting to withdraw funds at once. A complete economic collapse ensued, in which a staggering one fourth of Americans became unemployed. Soup kitchens, like the one pictured above, became common in cities, with lines commonly stretching several blocks. The Great Depression lasted a staggering 10 years—enough time for anyone to get sick of unemployment.
 

Below: an easy-to-understand video outlining the causes of the Great Depression.
 

Image credit & copyright: NARA, Public Domain
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of the 19th Amendment taking effect on this day in 1920, enjoy these curios all about the lives and accomplishments of extraordinary women.  Ooh, that might bruise. Born in 1878, photographer Percy Byron captured these unusual images showing women learning self defense around the turn of the 20th century. Held in New York, the self-help classes were revolutionary; at a time when physical exertion was still frowned upon, few women had access to ways to protect themselves while traversing the city's crowded streets. These images were taken at classes held by one Doctor William Latson, but he wasn't the only one encouraging women to take up arms... ahem, umbrellas. Coinciding with other feminist movements like suffrage, the women's self-defense movement spread to other cities, some classes even featuring boxing and jiu jitsu lessons. In the early 1900s, women still wore their heavy dresses while learning fight moves, but later images show them in looser, more comfortable clothing. Either way, it looks like these ladies weren't afraid to roll up their sleeves and get dirty!
 

Below: more of Percy Byron's images of a self-defense class; a woman performs jiu jitsu on a man in Berlin in 1924.
 

Image credit & copyright: Percy C. Byron / Museum of the City of New York and German Federal Archive
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of International Orangutan Day, enjoy these curios about endangered animals and plants. Talk about a comeback story! In 2018, a gigantic specimen of endangered lily pads made a spectacular resurgence. Called Victoria Cruziana, hundreds of these plants appeared on the surface of the Salado River near Piquete Cue, Paraguay—an area where they were just recently believed to be extinct. The lily pads grow upwards of five feet in diameter, and although their robustness seems like an ideal survival trait, it was once a great detriment. Droves of tourists used to flock to the Victoria Cruzianas' native rivers to touch them, ride them, and even make off with them. In 2006, the enormous lilies were put on the endangered species list. All these years later, the environmental effort is finally paying off: the Victoria Cruziana has returned to the Salado River from out of the blue. Or should we say, out of the green?

 

Image credit & copyright: David Stanley, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size
 

It's Flashback Friday! As the summer heat continues, enjoy these curios all about weather. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore—in fact, these turbulent clouds passed over Shasta County near Redding, California in 2019. A National Weather Service report issued a tornado warning for the areas between Anderson and Redding, roughly a 10 mile stretch of land. Residents who usually had views of flat farmlands, forested hills, and Mount Shasta's peak, beheld a psychedelic arrangement of lights and funneling storm clouds in the low precipitation supercell storm (a cyclone containing little water). Luckily, the clouds didn't cause any major destruction, although 1.5-inch-diameter hail rocks and some lightning accompanied the unusual weather. Cory Mueller of the National Weather Service remarked that low precipitation supercells are something of a visual marvel and "...typically very photogenic because you can see the storm structure very well." We just hope these photographers will keep themselves out of harm's way, especially if the next storm proves to be more dangerous!

 

Below: more images from the Shasta County storm clouds.
 

Image credit & copyright: Angela Walfoort, Cody Gayman, Sean Boren
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of Work Like a Dog Day, enjoy these curios all about work and business. We've heard of taking a boat out fishing before, but these lobster farmers are next level. Lobster Farm by photographer Pham Huy Trung, a finalist in the 2018 Drone Awards, shows lobster fishing off of the Hòn Yến coast in Phú Yên Province, Vietnam. Out of thousands of submissions each year, the prize showcases some of the best aerial and drone photos around the world. Aerial photography has been around at least since the 1860s when James Wallace Black photographed Boston from a 2,000-foot elevation. Getting a direct overhead shot like Trung's flattens vertical dimensions and allowing for bright colors and textures, like those of the neon netting and baskets in the deep blue water, to really pop. What does the future hold for drone photography? We're not sure, but we bet drones will keep mapping places in unimaginable ways!

 

Below: more past winners from the Drone Awards, including When the muddy river meets the ocean by Joao Galamba, Bear and Salmon by Roie Galitz, and Sidewalk by Guilherme Pupo.
 

Image credit & copyright: Pham Huy Trung, Joao Galamba, Roie Galitz, Guilherme Pupo, Drone Awards
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of the upcoming anniversary of the Game of Thrones book series, enjoy these fantasy-themed curios. 
Now that's a party we'd like to attend. A ship on the horizon is dwarfed by a lively explosion of fireworks, while snow-capped peaks and remnants of an iceberg frame the celebrations. Welcome to the fantasy world of Canadian photographer Sarah Anne Johnson, who manipulates and adorns her chromogenic prints with blots of ink, marker, and paint. "I do this to create a more honest image," she has said. "To show not just what I saw, but how I feel about what I saw." Clearly she felt a lot of contrasting emotions about what she saw during her 2009 residency in the Arctic Circle, where this photograph was taken: haunted by the desolate environment, worried about the melting ice, and inspired to celebrate its natural beauty. The ink and the photo are integrated so gracefully that we're still second guessing what was in the original snapshot and what was drawn on. You'll just have to "draw" your own conclusions.
 
Image credit & copyright: Sarah Anne Johnson
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of National Mango Day, enjoy these curios all about fruit. 
Summertime is just around the corner! Once you're done sipping on that lemonade, see if you can come up with a more creative use for the straw than Michael Farrell and Cliff Haynes. The image was taken with the pair's Straw Camera, constructed with a whopping 32,000 straw tubes. Many people have likened the device to a super-amplified pinhole camera, a lensless camera made of a box with a small hole in the front. Each straw is placed directly against photosensitive paper, rendering like a "pixel" within the full view. The resulting photos have a blurry, "honeycombed" aesthetic, as seen in the still life of fruit and books above—reminiscent of an insect's view of the world through its compound eyes. Farrell and Haynes began working on the project in 2008, refining both the camera and their photo techniques over the past decade. Now if we could just figure out how to attach it to our iPhones….

 
Below: the camera, filled with black straws; the device in action.

 
Image credit & copyright: Michael Farrell and Cliff Haynes
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of the recently-released photos from the James Webb Space Telescope, enjoy these curios all about space. 
There's a party in outer space and we forgot to bring our platform shoes. In 2018, New Zealand-based aerospace startup Rocket Lab launched their Humanity Star—the equivalent of a gigantic disco ball—into Earth's orbit. The "star," a three-foot-wide carbon fiber sphere, will be the brightest object in the night sky for nine months until it falls from orbit and dissolves. "The Humanity Star is designed to be a bright symbol and reminder to all on Earth about our fragile place in the universe," said Rocket Lab CEO, Peter Beck (shown above). Orbiting the earth every 90 minutes with 65 highly reflective panels, it's a reminder that's certainly hard to miss—and that's why astrophysicists, astronomers, and environmentalists are taking up arms against it. Several academics are concerned the satellite will interfere with their celestial studies and have branded it "space graffiti"; others fear Earth's orbit will become an inescapable billboard. Director of astrobiology at Columbia University, Caleb Scharf, describes the star as "another invasion of my personal universe, another flashing item asking for eyeballs." On second thought, maybe it's not the best idea to treat our solar system like it's downtown on a Friday night!
 

Image credit & copyright: Rocket Lab