Masterpieces of early photography

August 15, 2008 11:26 AM

More than 5000 masterpieces of early photographygathered by German site zeno.org. Here they are arranged by photographer. Among the photographers are Eadweard Muybridge, Louis Daguerre, Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Jacob Riis and Lewis Carrol. There are way too many interesting photographs in here to mention, so here are but a few: Tolstoy brandishing a pen at Chekov, dapper German, running soldier, old guy and typewriter and men dressed for a costume party.
posted by Kattullus (24 comments total)

The costume party picture is by Hermann Krone, an interesting photographer I found on zeno.org.
posted by Kattullus at 11:30 AM on August 15, 2008

I love old photography. Thanks for the link.

> old guy and typewriter

I believe that's a writing desk.
posted by ardgedee at 11:36 AM on August 15, 2008

(I had to come back here to determine which was the dapper German and which the costume party.)
posted by DU at 11:39 AM on August 15, 2008

Oops! That's what I get for trying to make sense of captions in languages I don't know.
posted by Kattullus at 11:39 AM on August 15, 2008

Some of the printed ephemera is pretty great too: Alter Kurs; Ere yar!...; A Casa.
posted by ardgedee at 11:41 AM on August 15, 2008

> That's what I get for trying to make sense of captions in languages I don't know.

You didn't confuse it with a raven, and that's the important thing.
posted by ardgedee at 12:11 PM on August 15, 2008

I keep going back to that picture of the costumed men. The guy dressed like a Greek column seems especially unhappy with his choice of attire. His face radiates: "Scheiße! Why the poop did I decide to dress as an architectural feature?!"
posted by Kattullus at 12:13 PM on August 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Damn, I came up with (0 Treffer) for nackte Frau!
posted by cjorgensen at 12:14 PM on August 15, 2008

ardgedee: You didn't confuse it with a raven, and that's the important thing.

Oh man! I can't believe I missed the opportunity to make a cheap Lewis Carrol joke in a post which features the old pervert great japester.
posted by Kattullus at 12:17 PM on August 15, 2008

cjorgensen: Damn, I came up with (0 Treffer) for nackte Frau!

It's all about knowing where to look. [nsfw]
posted by Kattullus at 12:21 PM on August 15, 2008

Awesome, thanks. Not just photos but great pen and ink drawings of my favorite subject, the fahrrad.
posted by fixedgear at 12:23 PM on August 15, 2008

Kattullus:
Or over here. [nsfw]
posted by fings at 1:02 PM on August 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Good ol' Rejlander. MaryDellamorte made a good post about him a few months back which linked to his zeno.org collection.
posted by Kattullus at 1:09 PM on August 15, 2008

I can't seem to find the page, in the site, for the credits and explanation of the photograph of Tolstoy and Chekov. None of the terms I've tried searching for was of any use (tolstoi, tolstoj, tolstoy, chejov, chekov). I mostly need to know who was it that took the picture and in what year and where.

Could you provide the in-site link besides the image link? If they indeed are Chekov and Tolstoy the photo would be very useful to me. Thnx.
posted by omegar at 1:09 PM on August 15, 2008

Scrap my last comment, please. I've found it by searching for Čechov.

Cheers!
posted by omegar at 1:11 PM on August 15, 2008

One of my all-time favorites: Eugène Atget.
posted by strangecargo at 1:24 PM on August 15, 2008

Is this an okay place to post about how annoying Muybridge's choice of the name Eadweard is? It's so precious. Eadweard Eadweard Eadweard.

It is definitely a good place to mention the American nineteenth-century photography at shorpy.com.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:46 PM on August 15, 2008

1839. First human figure ever photographed (man on the street getting his shoes shined; he held still long enough to be captured by Daguerre's camera).
posted by squalor at 5:28 PM on August 15, 2008

Nice photograph of Charles Darwin from that site.
posted by nickyskye at 5:54 PM on August 15, 2008

Amazingly, none of Lewis Carrol's photos will have the Feds knocking down my door.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:57 PM on August 15, 2008

Using the Zufälliger Artikel link, that provides a random picture from the collection, I stumbled on a set of pictures of Ludwig II of Bavaria and family, Wagner etc.
posted by jouke at 8:59 PM on August 15, 2008

He looks completely sane to me.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:52 AM on August 16, 2008

I Love this old Photography.
posted by sagar13d at 1:02 AM on August 16, 2008

Today's moment of zen for me: through the randomiser, I stumbled upon this very sad photo. By a certain Thomas John Barnardo. He was quite remarkable.
posted by Harry at 8:04 AM on August 16, 2008