Wednesday 6 February 2013

Sepia Saturday - Snow

Sepia Saturday
No doubt all my fellow Sepia Saturday bloggers will write this week about barrels, beards or bricks. So it is likely that I will be the only one to take snow as the motto for #163. But before I am off to a slippery start, first something about the picture. The gentleman with the beard is clearly taking a break while posing for the photographer. The other gentleman is more mysterious. Is he guarding the barrels or waiting for the bus or ... The half open curtains in the bay window suggest that maybe a child is looking at a completely unexpected white world. The lettering on the sign board indicates that we are looking at a grocery. I was not too sure about the meaning of the preceding letters (NCH). In fact I had no idea. 
A quick check on Google learns that this is a picture taken in Keene, New Hampshire after what is called 'the great storm' on March 13, 1888. The man cleaning the street is Mr. C. -what's in a name- Dustin. Possibly he owns the shop which is the Boston Branch Grocery. The type of business also gives some direction about the purpose of the barrels. The man in the black coat somewhat surprises me. He looks like a person from the 1950's and not from the second part of the 19th century. I did not know those hats existed then.
So much for the theme picture, I'll come to the point: snow. 
I am blessed with some well filled shoe boxes. And fortunately also with some family pictures made in snowy circumstances. The first one shows my mother taking a rest in the snow.
Den Haag West 1937
A lady in distress?
One could also say she is trying to attract attention after having lost her balance in the slippery snow. But somehow I don't think that is the case. I guess she's about 20 years old here so this could be 1937.  I don't know who the photographer has been. Possibly my father but I don't know whether they knew each other already. But it is the kind of photo you make when you go out for a walk with your girlfriend. And then the location. I think the elevations on the left hand side could be the dunes. In the background there are city extensions/limits which would fit in with the situation in the western part of The Hague then. 
There was snow that winter. The video below was shot at the no longer existing airport Ypenburg near The Hague in March of that year. It shows people skiing there while being towed by a car; the vid takes 37 seconds to look at.





But there is more shoe box snow. Both pictures below have been taken at the same location in The Hague. I recognize the "garden" of our house in 614 Goudreinetstraat also in The Hague.
Goudreinetstraat Den Haag
F.l.t.r. my brother, myself and my mother
The photo's have been taken on the same occasion in probably 1948. The appartments in the background above are situated in the Appelstraat.
Goudreinetstraat Den Haag
Me and my Mom with my little brother peeking around the corner
For those known locally, the houses that you see are those on the Thorbeckelaan. 
With my last not so sepia picture I like to compliment Alan with the timing and the choice of this week's theme picture. I took it from our balcony this morning. And I can assure you that we don't have any white tiles here. 
The picture also proves that snow in Keene NH (New Hampshire) is just as white as it is in Castricum NH (North Holland). At the same time it means that certain things remain the same, even after 125 years.
Castricum
Castricum on February 6, 2013
As I said before, for the barrels, the beards and the bricks you have to go see my fellow Sepians. I'm sure they have been busy shoveling all their literary inspiration together here.

36 comments:

  1. Great post. You are an expert at investigating these photos - I hadn't thought about the inconsistency of that 1950s figure in an 1880s photograph. I suspect your North Holland snow blew all the way up here to Yorkshire - I blame it on the European Single Market.

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  2. Lovely blog Peter. The photo you took is fabulous, the morning ( or is it evening? ) sun shining on those few houses and the snowcapped roofs.
    I have some old pics with those wavy edges as well, must be those days they printed them on paper like that. I have one from 1957 with those edges too.
    The barrels and beardman in the first pic are lovely, straight from a Dicken's tale I might say.

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  3. Your mom was such a lady! Even in the snow she wore dresses. Brrrr. I bet the fur trim felt good around her face.

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  4. I'm still trying to figure out how you found that image with a Google search. Always keen to learn a new search tip!

    Nigel

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  5. Barrels and beards? You are funny Peter. Your mother looks beautiful and glamorous, even if she is 'in distress'. Is she wearing some kind of attachment on her shoes for walking in snow? She looks equally fashionable in the pictures of you and your brother. How wonderful to have pictutres of yourself in the snow as a child,

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  6. Reuze waardevol zo'n schoenendoos vol foto's.

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  7. @Alan
    You are just a referendum away from fair weather :)
    @aussie K
    It's the morning sun. Our view is towards the south.
    @Wendy
    I'll tell her!
    @Nigel
    Set Google in the Images mode;
    Go to your pictures folder and drag a single picture to Google Images and drop it where the small camera is shown;
    Go to Google Images via the bar at the bottom of your screen.
    @Little Nell
    It looks like some kind of protection against the snow. Didn't notice that before.
    @Marleen
    Ik noem het maar schoenendozen maar in werkelijk zijn het ook een hele stapel albums. Maar waardevol is het zeker!

    Thanks for stopping by!

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  8. Thank you Peter. I suppose I must seem unadventurous not wondering what they were for when the little microphone/camera appeared some time ago. I had read some time ago that this was a search facility for the future, but missed its introduction. Now I feel stupid as I have written next week's post already, having identified the (Tortoise) image in a far more old fashioned way !! Never mind !

    Nigel

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  9. @Nigel, Another method is to right click on the image you want to learn about (such as the prompt photo). Select "copy image URL." Go to images.Google.com. In the search bar, click on the camera. Then paste the image URL. (NOTE: When you are selecting "copy image URL," you won't actually see the address until you paste it in the search bar.)

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  10. It's comfortable to know snow was and will always be the same everywhere anytime. BTW my grandparents lived at The Gaslaan (at the corner with the Gheijnstraat).

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  11. Well perhaps everybody will post snow pictures, and nobody will have barrels and beards! The photo of your mother in the snow reminds me of several in my own collection, of varying age. It must be a thing about snow banks, I think.

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  12. Peter you are far from being the only one to take snow as their theme.

    Our threatened snow hasn't come. Not surprising really as the last fall we had wasn't expected at all.

    Fine pictures.

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  13. Thanks for the lesson on how to use Google.

    Yours must be a wonderful shoebox to have pictures with snow. I was, unfortunately, brought up with the notion that you only got the box brownie out when the sun shone.

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  14. All these snow photos are fantastic. I have only seen snow once and it was on the ground, so I have not actually felt snow falling! I really do think I am missing something wonderful. By the way, your mother looks very glamorous!

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  15. I normally try to post postcards on my postcard blog, but your photos reminded me of a photo I have of myself walking my standard poodle in the snow on Christmas Day 1962. I was wearing a new ski jacket and cutoffs! Now I wouldn't even wear shorts inside in the winter.

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  16. I love the little detail of your brother peeking around the corner. Wouldn't have notice it if you didn't mention it. I'm learning a lot: that's a 1950's hat, not from the later part of the 19th century - interesting!

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  17. give me snow any day, sepia or not so sepia! That was an lovely ending photo for a snowy theme.

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  18. Your mother is beautiful and was she wearing high heels in the snow in the picture with you? If so and she was in the habit of wearing precarious, but leg-flattering foot gear, it might explain her semi-prone pose in the first picture. I love the photo over the roof tops. Another very entertaining post.

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  19. What great pictures, Peter! Thanks for taking the time to look up what our theme photo was all about. It seems somehow appropriate that New Hampshire is in for another blizzard this weekend.

    You guys were cuties, and your Mom is lovely.

    Kathy M.

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  20. What a fun post. I love the photo of mother posing in the snow. She looks more glamorous than distressed. I think she was just having a bit of fun. I also like your head gear.
    Nancy

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  21. Yes, I think your mother was having fun there, but it makes me shiver to think of "lounging" in the snow like that! And thanks for the google lessons. I had read about using the image search of pictures on your computer, but not the URL.

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  22. You do a great photo detecting job! Thank you for explaining how it's done. (You too, Wendy!)

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  23. I agree I think your mom was having fun. She was a beautiful and stylish woman as can be seen in the with you and your brother peeping out. Thanks for your visit and your concern for our tree. It is a riverbirch and thanks to its agility it always swings back. We could not go out the front door for fear of breaking the limbs, so had to wait for them to thaw out. I liked this theme. Enjoyed your post.
    QMM

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  24. I think the shady looking man in modern dress in the prompt is without a doubt, a time traveler. No other explanation. Well, maybe he's a hat designer and is trying out a hat that didn't catch on in 1890 but was the rage when brought back by his son in 1950.

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  25. Your Mum Looks So Eligant & Totally Unfazed By The Weather!{p.s.David Cameron Wants His Snow Back!!!!!}

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  26. My! Quite a fashionable lady stuck in the snow!

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  27. Great investigating on your part with the photo- in such detail- and I enjoyed your thoughts with the window and etc. I was curious about that mysterious man for sure. Your mother is lovely and I think she was just having a blast in the snow and having her photo taken. Very nice family photos, and I like how it tied it all up with SNOW!

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  28. Great post, I used snow and I guess coats as well. I have shots of my mom that remind me of your mother in the snow..must of been that time in their lives, young and beautiful with boyfriends or husbands who stopped time when they clicked on the camera, and we can still see the fun and joy of the moment!

    I also enjoyed seeing the pictures of places i have never been.

    Jan @ Jans Place

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  29. A very entertaining post, and I admire the way you can find such detail and facts by a close investigation of the prompt photo - a good tutorial! Your photograph of the snowy roof tops is lovely.

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  30. I saw on the map that Goudreinetstraat is near Kijkduin, which is a landmark for me. Your neighborhood is not as far away as the crow flies from Kerklaan, where I grew up, but we never got that far in your direction. Our range was usually limited to the Visserijbuurt and Oud-Scheveningen.
    Thanks for sharing!

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  31. The people hanging on to the car while skiing, so funny; I have seen them hanging on to a horse!
    Anyway I preferred Parsenn in Davos. The last picture looking over the snowy roofs is beautifully serene.

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  32. Your photos remind me of the days when my sons were small. They did love the snow. I prefer to keep snow at a distance.

    I was talking to my friends near Utrecht yesterday and they were having heavy snow at the time. Here it came and went overnight, I'm happy to say.

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  33. When we drop your photo of fresh snow from 5 days ago into the magic Google Image box, it finds your blog of course, but offers up an amazing variety of similar images. Similar as seen by a computer though, with balcony views and landscapes that include Tokyo, Capetown, and Sacramento!

    Now do the same with your mother in the snow, and yes Google find your blog, but offers pictures of empty rooms, bathtubs, toilets, and sandstorms! Is there no end to the way technology improves our lives?

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  34. Your mom sure was pretty and elegant.
    Cute photos of you all.

    Yeah, snow is consistently the same everywhere:

    Annoying!!!
    :D~
    HUGZ

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  35. Oh you've brought back so many memories. I recall my mother in the Sierra's taking off on the snowmobile in an open expanse while my dad and I stood talking to a neighbor. When we turned around to find her we saw the snowmobile, but no mom. That seemed a bit odd. We took off climbing up the hill in waste deep snow only to discover she'd fallen off and into a hole next to a pine tree. As we got closer we could see the tips of her fingers waving above the snow. She wasn't hurt, just down in a dry hole with snow all around her. We laughed about it for years.

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