doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 1870s Sportsmen

From doing quite a bit of genealogy work, one notices the "eyes" of early photos. In those early photos, the eyes had to be painted in, since most people blinked during the long exposures. The dog is not in focus as well as the people are in this photo. The people probably did not move, while the dog was a bit more active during the exposure.

Many times on "family" photos or baby photos from the early periods, one can see a clamp holding the back of the baby's head still during exposure.

My guess is that the photo is from the period of the guns.

I can just hear the guy... "Hey Joe, I'll keep an eye out for you!"

Heads stuck through holes just like in Ocean City. There are way too many features or props for those guys to have dressed up and gotten their "stuff" together for a picture. It is a backdrop with the subjects' head stuck through holes in the backdrop. These heads do not all line up with the bodies, especially hunters two, three, and four. Now that I look closer, hunter number one is part of the backdrop and never came to the photo studio with two, three, and four.

eightbore, if Hunter 1 was part of the props, it is odd for him to have poorly painted in eyes when other details are quite good. Now, how about the dog ? If he's part of the prop, why is he blurred ? Those odd hats might explain how the faces fit through the holes and hole lines were concealed .

The picture appears completely kosher to me. I sell lots of studio set up shots like this one of all kinds of different hunters with different game.

P.S
A lot of these studio shots including dogs show blurred heads and bodies.... very typical

I agree with Dennis. The photo is real people and real accoutrements. I do think #2, 3, and 4 are brothers. And it's interesting # 2 and 3 seem to have the same guns except one has a POW grip and the other straight.