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San Francisco circa 1927. "Paige Cabriolet Roadster." Today's entry on the Shorpy Roster of Rusty Relics. 5x7 glass negative by Christopher Helin. View full size.
---rumble seat, golf club door, visor, two-tone paint, spare tire cover. What's the round emblem down near the corner of the hood?
is Lon Chaney Sr.
[That was my first thought. -tterrace]
(...Great minds, etc. -bohneyjames)
In spite of its charming name, this particular vehicle's occupants lead me to believe that this is a very early version of the Munster Mobile, and it scares me.
I know that all the Paige cars probably weren't owned by folks like the ones shown here, but who really knows?
The guy's face looks (badly) dodged in printing, not that it would have been easy to do better.
That is, it's too dark to print yet is on the negative, and you move a bit of opaque paper back and forth across it while exposing the print to reduce its exposure on the paper, and hence lighten up a dark area.
But I don't understand the process from negative to Shorpy pic.
[First, you are confusing burning and dodging. If the guy's face is too dark, it's badly burned; reducing the exposure by dodging would lighten the area underneath; to make it darker you increase the exposure on the desired area by using a piece of paper with a hole cut in it. Second, there was no "darkroom work" -- no print, no paper, no burning or dodging. We take the glass negative (Fig. A), place it on the scanner (Fig. B) and hit SCAN. We do minor adjustments in Photoshop and then publish it to the web. The man (Fig. C) looks dark because he has a dark, tanned or ruddy complexion; also, unlike the lady, he is in shadow rather than direct sun. - Dave]
He looks sinister, she looks evil. I wouldn’t get in the car.
[I think he looks a little like Lassie's dad, the actor Robert Bray. - Dave]
That Paige Roadster features a pair of custom items from the 20's. These rare lights are still popular today with "Old School" hotrodders, who often strip them to bare metal, then buff/polish or chrome plate them, like this:
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