Smile for the Camera - 10th Edition - Costume

Unknown subject, cabinet card,

Le Rue Lemer, Harrisburg, PA,

no other identifying information.

I love this unknown woman's image and show it in my photograph workshops sometimes. It is a 'stray' that I bought in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada.

I think the photographer must have been pleased with the way the photograph points up the various textures in her costume and her hair. She is showing off her ring finger, so I thought this must have been an engagement photograph, but she does seem sad to me. Perhaps she meant to look wistful. But what I specially like is that her dress is even more 'upholstered' and 'decorated' than the chair she rests her hands on. I do hope it wasn't hot that day.

I've seen many references on-line to photographs from this studio in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA. According to the book, Harrisburg's Old Eighth Ward, the LeRue Studio was the longest continuously operating business in the city. LeRue Lemer Senior (1837-1920) is mentioned as a photographer. Harrisburg's Old Eighth Ward: The Old Eighth Ward, Pennsylvania by J. Howard Wert, Michael Barton, and Jessica Dorman ( Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, USA: Arcadia Publishing, 2002) Preview on-line at Google Book Search: http://books.google.ca/books?id=VPxdCBkoKIgC&printsec=frontcover

This photograph is my entry for the 10th Edition of Smile For The Camera. The theme this time is Costume - as in dress in general; especially the distinctive style of dress of a people, class, or period. Show us that picture that you found with your family collection or purchased that shows the costumes of the rich to the not so rich, from the civil war to the psychedelic sixties. I know you have them, so share.

Smile for the Camera, Shades of the Departed: http://www.shadesofthedeparted.com/