Picture This: A Harvest of Pictures: New Flickr Albums

A Harvest of Pictures: New Flickr Albums
By Barbara Orbach Natanson

Detail of Library of Congress Flickr albums page. Sept. 2020.

While many Prints & Photographs Division staff are working separately from their home offices, dens, and living rooms, pictures never fail to bring us together. In the waning days of summer, it’s a pleasure to immerse ourselves in the pictures that we gathered in response to seek-and-find challenges offered by reference specialist Jan Grenci. We shared the results in two new Flickr albums.

The Beaches & Boardwalks album selections remind us that sun, sand, surf, and the occasional hot dog or beach spectacle have long offered diversion.

I enjoyed the contrast between the the well-covered beach visitors in the background of this picture and the relatively bare-skinned lifeguard, still retaining the formality of an official cap:

A Life guard, Brighton Beach, N.Y. Photo by Detroit Publishing Co., between 1901 and 1906. https://ift.tt/32CEARa

This one gives a whole new meaning to “well-covered”:

Redding, California. Youngsters at the beach. Photo by Russell Lee, 1942. https://ift.tt/2RxZJ8R

Others that offered me vicarious pleasure:

Sagami shichirigahama. Color woodcut by Ando Hiroshige, 1858. https://ift.tt/3iGPHy4

Nathan’s Hot Dogs from boardwalk... Photo by Al Ravenna, 1954. https://ift.tt/3hGcGYD

The Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth–The great Coney Island water carnival… Poster, copyrighted 1898. https://ift.tt/2FIAcan

The You Say Tomato album illustrates that tomatoes have inspired documentation and artistic renderings of all kinds, perhaps often (but not always) fueled by their luscious color:

Ripe red tomatoes for sale here. Color woodcut, copyrighted 1869. https://ift.tt/33C84hf

Rehabilitation client and wife with one day’s tomato pick off coast of Beaufort, South Carolina. Photo by Carl Mydans, 1936. https://ift.tt/3mytUe4

Tomatoes at the Yauco Cooperative Growers’ Association, Puerto Rico. Photo by Jack Delano, 1942. https://ift.tt/2HbvLpa

Kavkaz. Gruzin – torgovets pomidorami (Caucasus. Georgian – tomato trader). Photo by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, between 1905 and 1915. https://ift.tt/3kpuLvU

And who can resist a slightly apprehensive marching tomato?

War gardens over the top. The seeds of victory insure the fruits of peace. Poster by Maginel Wright Enright, 1919? https://ift.tt/2J3OH67

Whether or not expanses of sea and sand or marching tomatoes catch your fancy, stay tuned! We’re busy gathering pictures on more themes for upcoming Flickr albums.

Learn More

• View the Beaches & Boardwalks and You Say Tomato Flickr albums, or select among the many other albums we have compiled.
• If you want more pictures on these these themes, wade into the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog to view images relating to bathing beaches, boardwalks and surfing and sample an array of images relating to fruits (of which the tomato is one!) and vegetables.
• Read about the Library of Congress Flickr project and review some of our previous blog posts highlighting our Flickr activities.
• Explore a new Flickr activity we launched this month through the Library of Congress blog post, “Library Seeks Pictures of Pandemic Experiences”