22 Curious Daguerreotypes of People Turn Their Backs to Camera

The daguerreotype was invented by Louis Daguerre (1787–1851), and it was the first commercial photographic process. A highly polished silver surface on a copper plate was sensitized to light by exposing it to iodine fumes. After exposing the plate in a camera it was developed with mercury vapor.

The invention revolutionized landscape photography. Portraits, however, were still a nuisance. Good luck getting kids to sit still for family photos, let alone convincing adults to stare motionlessly for 15 minutes. So, photographers set up some simple rules: No talking. No adjusting. No sneezing. And, just to be safe, no smiling.

By the 1840s, exposure times bobbed around 10 to 60 seconds, making personal photos much more feasible. Yet even then, heads sagged, backs slouched, and fingers fidgeted. Some professionals developed hidden neck braces that would lock the subject’s body into place.

It took decades for photography to become near instantaneous, and for “say cheese” to become part of popular culture. Here, a collection of 22 curious daguerreotypes of people turn their backs to camera for a photograph.

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Paul Muni: The Most Prestigious Actor at the Warner Bros. Studio During the 1930s

Born 1895 as Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund, Austro-Hungarian-born American actor Paul Muni grew up in Chicago and began acting on Broadway in 1926. His first role was that of an elderly Jewish man in the play We Americans.

His acting quality, usually playing a powerful character, such as the lead in Scarface (1932), was partly a result of his intense preparation for his parts, often immersing himself in study of the real character’s traits and mannerisms.

Muni was also highly skilled in using makeup techniques, a talent he learned from his parents, who were also actors, and from his early years on stage with the Yiddish theater in Chicago. At the age of 12, he played the stage role of an 80-year-old man; in one of his films, Seven Faces, he played seven different characters.

Muni made 22 films, nominated 5 Academy Awards and won one for Best Actor for his role in the 1936 film The Story of Louis Pasteur. He also starred in numerous Broadway plays and won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in the 1955 production of Inherit the Wind.

Paul Muni died of a heart disorder in Montecito, California in 1967, aged 71. A star was installed in his honor on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6435 Hollywood Blvd.

Take a look at these vintage photos to see portrait of a young Paul Muni in the 1930s and 1940s.

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The Story Behind an Epic Picture of a Group of Samurais Posing in Front of the Sphinx, Egypt, 1864

Ikeda Nagaoki (1837-1879) was the governor of small villages in Ibara, Bitchu Province. He was chosen to lead a group of delegates from the Japanese Embassy to Europe, sent by Tokugawa Shogunate on February 6, 1864. In his role as head the mission became known as the “Ikeda mission.”

The main objective of the mission was to secure a trading agreement with the French which would see the closure of the harbor of Yokohama to foreign trade to close the country to western influences and a desire to return to national seclusion or sakoku. The task was unsuccessful due to Yokohama being the centre of foreign presence in Japan since 1854 when the country was opened by Commodore Perry in 1854.

In 1864, en route to Paris, the Ikeda mission visited Egypt. The stay was memorialized in one of nineteenth-century photography’s most extraordinary images — the embassy’s members, dressed in winged kamishimo costume and jingasa hats, carrying their feared long (katana) and short (wakizashi) swords, standing in front of the Giza Sphinx.

The mission visited Egypt where the members were photographed in front of the Sphinx by Antonio Beato. On 23 August 1864, the mission returned to Japan. It was a failure.

Antonio Beato (1835–1906), also known as Antoine Beato, was an Italian-British photographer. He is noted for his genre works, portraits, views of the architecture and landscapes of Egypt and the other locations in the Mediterranean region. He was the younger brother of photographer Felice Beato (1832–1909), with whom he sometimes worked. Antonio and his brother were part of a small group of commercial photographers who were the first to produce images of the Orient on a large scale.

By the 1850s, tourist travel to Middle East created strong demand for photographs as souvenirs. Beato, and his brother were part of a group of early photographers who made their way to the East to capitalize on this demand. These pioneering photographers included Frenchmen, Félix Bonfils (1831-1885); Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884) and Hippolyte Arnoux, brothers Henri and Emile Bechard and the Greek Zangaki brothers, many of whom were in Egypt at the same time and entered into both formal and informal working partnerships. These early photographers, including Antonio and his brother, were among the first commercial photographers to produce images on a large scale in the Middle East.

Antonio Beato went to Cairo towards the end 1859 or early 1860 and spent two years there before moving to Luxor where he opened a photographic studio in 1862 (until his death in 1906) and began producing tourist images of the people and architectural sites of the area. In the late 1860s, Antonio was in partnership with the French photographer, Hippolyte Arnoux. Beato’s images of Egypt were distinctly different to those of other photographers working in the region. Whereas most photographers focussed on the grandeur of monuments and architecture, Beato concentrated on scenes of everyday life.

In 1864, at a time when his brother Felice was living and photographing in Japan, Antonio photographed members of Ikeda Nagaoki’s Japanese mission who were visiting Egypt on their way to France.

Vintage Postcards Show Hotel Restaurants of New York in the 1950s

Returning World War II veterans created a post-war economic boom and the development of large housing tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County as well as similar suburban areas in New Jersey.

New York emerged from the war unscathed as the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading America’s place as the world’s dominant economic power. The United Nations Headquarters was completed in 1952, solidifying New York’s global geopolitical influence.

A set of vintage postcards shows what hotel restaurants of New York looked like in the 1950s.

The New Fallsview, Ellenville, New York

Goshen Inn, Goshen, New York

Grossinger's, Grossinger, New York

Grossinger's, Grossinger, New York

Hotel Astor, New York

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Clint Eastwood During the ’67 Promotional Tour in London for ‘A Fistful of Dollars’

Clint Eastwood arrived at London’s Heathrow airport on June 1, 1967. He was in the UK for a total of 9 days to promote A Fistful of Dollars. It was of course released some 3 years after it was made, due mainly to copyright problems with Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961).

Most pictures from this promotional tour were captured at Heathrow where it was arranged through United Artists for Clint to be photographed with three beauties from the UA publicity department. These three girls, dressed in cowboy hats, ponchos and toy guns were Sue Melody, Sandra Marshall and Anita McGregor.

A Fistful of Dollars is a 1964 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, alongside John Wells, Marianne Koch, W. Lukschy, S. Rupp, Jose Calvo, Antonio Prieto, and Joe Edger.[4] The film, an international co-production between Italy, West Germany, and Spain, was filmed on a low budget (reported to be $200,000), and Eastwood was paid $15,000 for his role.

Released in Italy in 1964 and then in the United States in 1967, it initiated the popularity of the Spaghetti Western genre. It was followed by For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, also starring Eastwood. Collectively, the films are known as the “Dollars Trilogy,” or the “Man with No Name Trilogy” after the United Artists publicity campaign referred to Eastwood’s character in all three films as the “Man with No Name.” All three films were later released in sequence in the United States in 1967, catapulting Eastwood into stardom.

The film has been identified as an unofficial remake of the Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo (1961), which resulted in a successful lawsuit by Toho, Yojimbo's production company.

As few Spaghetti Westerns had yet been released in the United States, many of the European cast and crew took on American-sounding stage names. A Fistful of Dollars was shot in Spain, mostly near Hoyo de Manzanares close to Madrid, but also (like its two sequels) in the Tabernas Desert and in the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park, both in the province of Almería.

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35 Beautiful Photos of Eva Bartok in the 1950s and ’60s

Born 1927 as Éva Márta Szőke Ivanovics in Budapest, Hungarian-British actress Eva Bartok began acting in films in 1950 and her last credited appearance was in 1966. She is best known for appearances in Blood and Black Lace, The Crimson Pirate, Operation Amsterdam, and Ten Thousand Bedrooms.

During the Second World War, a teenaged Bartok, the daughter of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, was forced to marry Hungarian Nazi officer Géza Kovács; the marriage was annulled after the war on the grounds of coercion of a minor.

Eva Bartok had four other marriages, all of which ended in divorce, including her marriage to actor Curd Jürgens (1955–56). Her daughter Deana was born in 1957, shortly after the marriage to Jürgens ended. Three decades later, Bartok claimed Deana's biological father was actually Frank Sinatra, with whom she had a brief affair in 1956.

Bartok died in 1998 in London at the age of 71. These beautiful photos captured portrait of young Eva Bartok in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Photos of the 1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix D-500

The 1960s opened with great promise. The Dodge Dart was a new model that year, based on a mid-sized 118-inch wheelbase unibody design adopted from Plymouth, and the Phoenix was the premium trim package for it. This special Phoenix was further equipped with the performance-oriented D500 package; indeed, this amazing motorcar features not only its original drivetrain and sheet-metal, but nearly every available option that could be added to this vehicle platform in 1960.

Dodge created 586 Phoenix D500-optioned Darts in 1960, but few were as spectacular as this one. The car is equipped with the 383/330 HP V-8 engine with Chrysler’s special long-tube D500 ram induction, which featured dual 4-barrel carburetors mounted on sonically tuned cast manifolds that looped across each opposing valve cover. It is backed by the pushbutton-activated TorqueFlite automatic transmission. The car, featuring its Ghia-inspired finned-and-piped panels as executed by designer Virgil Exner, is painted red and augmented by front bumper guards, backup lights, door-edge moldings and dual side mirrors; lower-body stone shields and deluxe wheel covers complete the picture of Dodge luxury.

Inside are red interior components, complete with rare power-swivel front seats, power windows, factory electric clock, foam-cushioned rear seat and an Astrophonic AM Radio with rear-seat speaker. Driving ease was accomplished with power steering and power brakes.

Here below is a photo set of the 1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix D-500, a reflection of the jet-age styling of the late 1950s and the cataclysms that brought about the legendary Chrysler products of the 1960s.

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