Hidden Mother Cafe

A whole series of weird, creepy "hidden mother" photographs.

Apparently:

Hidden mother photography is a genre of photography common in the Victorian era in which young children were photographed with their mother present but hidden in the photograph. It arose from the need to keep children still while the photograph was taken due to the long exposure times of early cameras.

The daguerreotypes that became publicly available during the 1840s had exposure times from tens of seconds to several minutes. While exposure times shrank as photographic technology developed, to get a clear picture of a child during the 19th century the child had to be persuaded to stay still, which could be difficult to achieve. One technique was for the mother--or sometimes the father, a nanny or the photographer's assistant--to be hidden within the frame, often behind curtains, under cloaks, or disguised as chairs. Mothers were also sometimes obscured simply by removing parts of the photograph afterward, or by them standing slightly off to one side so they could be cropped out. How successfully the mother was hidden varied. Sometimes, simply draped with fabric, their shape would be obvious. In some photographs, arms are clearly visible. A paper overlay could be used when framing the photograph to hide the parts showing the mother, focusing on the child instead The practice of hidden mother photography continued into the 1920s, fading away as cameras became more ubiquitous and exposure times became faster, rendering need to hold small children rigidly still no longer necessary.

It doesn't say why the mother had to be covered. I imagine the baby would keep turning to look at the mother, if it saw the mother, so they hid her under a carpet.

Capybaras are even cuter as babies because of course they are.

Pigeon has discovered a new way of hoarding food. Might make it hard to fly away with his haul, though.

You ever see an action movie and the hero is "hidden" up on the ceiling but the ceiling isn't that high and you're like, "There's no way if someone walked into that room he wouldn't naturally just see the guy perched on the ceiling. You just see it. Your cone of vision extends upwards, too."

That always bothers me. But this cat suggests that maybe it's real.

Speaking of action movies: Heroic entrance into a jeep.

"Good garden dog" helps his master bury the potatoes he's planting.

Magician wows the audience.

Have you ever seen snails eating?

Come out to the coast, we'll buy the dog a trampoline, we'll have a few laughs...

Dog takes his ailing fren out for a walk.

Cadyshack was real.

Seal makes human surfers look like n00bz.

Pet owners: I have no idea why I'm always exhausted every morning! Definitely watch through 2am.

Puppy and baby.

posted by Ace at 07:49 PM

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