My daughter, Matilda and I were in NYC a couple of months ago and besides visiting our friends over at Unis and having some rice pudding at, “From Rice to Riches” we stumbled across a photographer named Ramon on Spring Street. He uses an old box camera and developes the image using a wet-plate process.  Matilda’s flowery frock and head-band made it look even more like 1969.

I mentioned this to my photographer friend Mikael Kennedy who will be shooting our Spr. 2010 collection and he told me about a woman, named Keliy Anderson-Staley who continues to use this Civil War era style printing process in her Long Island City, NY studio.   She uses wooden view cameras with 19th Century brass lenses.  Mikael and his GF recently sat for her and here are a few of the shots.

Photo District News recently posted 14 rare color photos from the FSA (Farm Securities Administration.)  The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division which owns these FSA photos has a huge collection that you can view here. Lot’s of terrific old rural scenes, Great Depression shots, laborers and WWII images.  You can search for certain key words or by photographer.  The color ones are great to see as most of the photos of that era were obviously shot in B &W.

A couple books on the subject that might interest you can be found here and here.