1900-1920 - The Samaritans of Nablus (Shechhem). Samaritan smoking the narghileh.
I know what you’re thinking… but he’s probably smoking tobacco. For a long period in many areas in Europe they were quite a status symbol, and it was common to be photographed with the narghileh (aka hookah). They would often mix the tobacco with sweets like honey, and sometimes used a bit of rose oil or other liquids to alter the flavor.
It’s important for me in this work to remain respectful. So many pictures I’ve imagined these people doing some pretty goofy things, but on most, I won’t do it. I wouldn’t want to see one of my passed on relatives being made to do something silly (even if it would make this website way more popular). Sometimes the photo is taken in a humorous way, and with those I will be more liberal, because that was the intent when the photo was taken.
I think I’m finally getting the hang of adding more animation within these images. It was hard to grasp… here you have two frames, left and right. Within those two frames you may have several areas with movement. For each movement, it’s done once for the left frame, and then again moved for the right frame - or the animated area would lack wiggle and look wrong. This way I am able to add more movement outside of the main focal point of the image. Above, the focal points are his face and the hookah, those are the two places on the image that are most in focus through the wiggle. This is because they are about the same distance from the camera, and it’s lined up at the points of interest. But the hand on his lap has a very pronounced wiggle. I haven’t tried movement that drastic yet, but eventually the right image will come along.
Some of you may be wondering why I use so many photos from the middle east. This is because there are so many good quality images, dry plate, available from the Library of Congress from that region. The above image was taken in the American settlement in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a place that many wanted to see, so it not only educated, but it sold a lot of stereo cards. Likewise, Egypt, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, all of these places have a huge selection. But the dry plates, many in the collection are of exceptional quality. With these I can spend less time restoring the images and more time animating.
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