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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > Literary Merit > Writing Challenge - Dad's Old Family Album
Writing Challenge - Dad's Old Family Album  [message #78932] Mon, 14 July 2025 06:07 Go to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13801



Dad's Old Family Album is in preview. So many different ideas from a simple picture... I'm not sure of its age, nor the country of origin, nor the age of the young men.

[Updated on: Mon, 14 July 2025 06:08]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Writing Challenge - Dad's Old Family Album  [message #78933 is a reply to message #78932] Mon, 14 July 2025 14:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

Likes it here

Registered: March 2012
Messages: 236



I love the photo!

Of course it's something to generate inspiration, so  the origin of it doesn't matter from the point of view of the writing challenge...
but just out of interest, and because I'm that sort of person, I tried to find the origins of the photo.
According to my AI assistant (LOL!), if it is authentic, it's an enhanced version of an original. The original would be late 19th or early 20th century, and clothing indicates US or UK farm workers who are likely to be twins.

Please bear in mind that my own experience with AI assistants has shown them often to be unreliable.
Re: Writing Challenge - Dad's Old Family Album  [message #78934 is a reply to message #78932] Mon, 14 July 2025 18:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ds is currently offline  ds

Getting started

Registered: February 2004
Messages: 18



To me this shouts von Gloeden.

If this is correct it would in or about Taormina, Sicily.

Or it could of course be a photographer imitating him.

ds
Re: Writing Challenge - Dad's Old Family Album  [message #78935 is a reply to message #78934] Mon, 14 July 2025 22:03 Go to previous message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13801



"ds wrote on Mon, 14 July 2025 19:46"
To me this shouts von Gloeden.

If this is correct it would in or about Taormina, Sicily.

Or it could of course be a photographer imitating him.

ds



--
I'm not sure. vG's work has an aura of studied yet sanitised senusality which I do not see in this picture. However that might be explained in Wilhelm von Gloeden in the section 'Attitudes towards his work during his lifetime and later' where it says:

"Quote:"
The ones that garnered the most widespread attention in Europe and overseas were usually relatively chaste studies of peasants, shepherds, fisherman, etc., featured in clothing like togas or Sicilian traditional costume, and which generally downplayed their homoerotic implications. 

[Updated on: Mon, 14 July 2025 22:04]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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