Vintage | MONOVISIONS - Black & White Photography Magazine

Vintage: Everyday Life of Mexico City (1900s)

13 October 2017 0

Under the rule of Porfirio Díaz, Mexico City experienced a massive transformation. Díaz’s goal was to create a city which could rival the great European cities. He and his government came to the conclusion that they would use Paris as…

Vintage: Cycling down the Eiffel Tower (1923)

11 October 2017 0

In 1923, as France was recovering from the first World War, journalist Pierre Labric decided to ride a bicycle down the stairs from Level 1 of the Eiffel Tower (there are three levels). The Eiffel tower is 324 metres in…

Vintage: Everyday Life of Atlanta, Georgia (19th Century)

9 October 2017 0

After the Civil War ended in 1865, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt. Due to the city’s superior rail transportation network, the state capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1868. In the 1880 Census, Atlanta surpassed Savannah as Georgia’s largest…

Vintage: Everyday Life in Belgium (1900s)

7 October 2017 0

Belgium was one of the first countries to experience an Industrial Revolution, which brought prosperity in the 19th century but also opened a political dichotomy between liberal businessmen and socialist workers. The king set up his own private colonial empire…

Vintage: Cléo de Mérode Portraits (1890s and 1900s)

5 October 2017 0

Posing for many photographers who diffuse her image worldwide, in newspapers and postcards, she is elected Beauty Queen in 1896 among various celebrities. The same year, she enhances her fame when a white marble sculpture, La Danseuse, by Alexandre Falguière,…

Vintage: Panama Canal (1914-1915)

3 October 2017 0

The Canal was begun working on by France in 1881, but after that was taken over by the United States in 1904, and opened on August 15, 1914. It is considered as one of the largest and most difficult engineering…

Victorian Era 19th century Cabinet Cards with reverse side (1870s to 1880s)

2 October 2017 0

Collection of vintage 19th century Victorian Era Cabinet Cards with reverse side (1870s to 1880s). The cabinet card was a style of photograph which was widely used for photographic portraiture after 1870. It consisted of a thin photograph mounted on a…

Vintage: Shipwrecks from Isles of Scilly (Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries)

1 October 2017 0

From 1869 onwards, members of the family systematically recorded most of the great shipwreck disasters that occurred around the Isles of Scilly — a small group of islands off the coast of Cornwall in southern England. Patriarch, seaman, and pioneering…

Vintage: Early 20th Century B&W Nudes

29 September 2017 0

Since the first days of photography, the nude was a source of inspiration for those that adopted the new medium. Most of the early images were closely guarded or surreptitiously circulated as violations of the social norms of the time,…

Vintage: Daily Life in Galicia, Eastern Europe (1920s)

27 September 2017 0

Collection of photographs taken around 1920 when Galicia belonged to Poland. Today it is the western part of the Ukraine. All the photographs were taken in Rohatyn, Kuniuszki by unidentified photographer. via Wolfgang Wiggers

Vintage B&W photos of Paris, France (late 19th Century)

26 September 2017 0

After the fall of the Commune, the city was governed under the strict surveillance of the conservative national government. The French government and parliament did not return to the city from Versaillles until 1879, though the Senate returned earlier to…

Vintage: Everyday Life of Austria (1904)

22 September 2017 0

Collection of images shot by an unknown photographer on a “Grand Tour” through Europe in 1904. via Bill Nelson

Vintage: Streets of St. Louis, Missouri (early XX Century)

21 September 2017 0

When Missouri became a state in 1821, St. Louis County was created from the boundaries of the former St. Louis subdistrict of the Missouri Territory; St. Louis city existed within the county but was not coterminous with it. Starting in…

Vintage: Everyday Life in the U.S by Frances Benjamin Johnston (1900s-1910s)

15 September 2017 0

Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) was born during the American Civil War. In the 1880s, Johnston studied art in Paris and then returned home to Washington, DC, where she learned photography. She quickly established a national reputation as a professional photographer…

Vintage: Ottawa – Capital City of Canada (late 19th Century)

13 September 2017 0

Starting in the 1850s, large sawmills began to be erected by entrepreneurs known as lumber barons, and these became some of the largest mills in the world. Rail lines erected in 1854 connected Ottawa to areas south and to the…

Vintage: Gum Bichromate Process by Robert Demachy (late 19th Century)

7 September 2017 0

Robert Demachy was the leading French proponent of Pictorialism and the director of the Photo-Club de Paris, the French parallel to the American Photo-Secession (led by Alfred Stieglitz), the Viennese Kleeblatt, and the British Brotherhood of the Linked Ring. Like…

Vintage: San Francisco Before the Quake (1900s)

5 September 2017 0

By 1890, San Francisco’s population approached 300,000, making it the eighth-largest city in the United States at the time. Around 1901, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and…

Historic B&W photos of Copenhagen, Denmark, late 19th Century

31 August 2017 0

In 19th century, Copenhagen experienced a period of intense cultural creativity known as the Danish Golden Age. Painting prospered under C.W. Eckersberg and his students while C.F. Hansen and Gottlieb Bindesbøll brought a Neoclassical look to the city’s architecture. In…

Vintage: Women’s Styles of Maine from the Late 19th Century

30 August 2017 0

19th century fashions are highly romanticized in books and movies. Despite the prim and proper feminine ideal of the day, fashions in this period created an often exaggerated, ostentatious look. Tight corsets, gigantic hoop-skirts, and outrageous bustles make today’s fashion…