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Norwegian Student Takes Secret Street Photos In The 1890s
- caio1982 9y agoWhat/where is the location of the (third) picture with two ladies and a very curvy street? That looks like an optical illusion of sort given his POV, or is the street really as curvy and as steep as that? Beautiful shot that one.
- MrUnderhill 9y agoI walk by this street corner every now and then, and was puzzled by this as well. It's quite different today, but the location is more or less on top of the National Theater railway station [1]. I think you are right about the lens making it look more curvy/steep, in this aerial photo from 1937 [2], you can tell it's just 180 degrees. [1] https://goo.gl/maps/TNMB6AMVJSA2 https://goo.gl/maps/TNMB6AMVJSA2 [2] https://kart.finn.no/?lng=10.73088&lat=59.91467&zoom=19&mapType=historicalm-Oslo-1937%40h https://kart.finn.no/?lng=10.73088&lat=59.91467&zoom=19&mapT...
- jaclaz 9y agoVictoria Terrace (Terrasse), Oslo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Terrasse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Terrasse It doesn't seem particularly stretched by a "fish-eye" effect, all vertical lines of the buildings remain vertical, it is just a particular effect of the perspective, compare with: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Oslo._Victoria_terasse_-_NB_MS_G4_0396.jpg/500px-Oslo._Victoria_terasse_-_NB_MS_G4_0396.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Os... https://lokalhistoriewiki.no/wiki/Fil:70._Christiania,_Victoria_Terrasse,_1892_-_NB_bldsa_AL0070.jpg https://lokalhistoriewiki.no/wiki/Fil:70._Christiania,_Victo... http://www.enerhaugen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Oslo-Victoria-terrasse-_-resampled_greyscale.jpg http://www.enerhaugen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Oslo-Vi... Ok, found one similar: https://www.vartoslo.no/media/uploads/2017/06/Victoria-terrasse.jpg https://www.vartoslo.no/media/uploads/2017/06/Victoria-terra...
- robertelder 9y agoI visited this page two times and it caused my browser to download a file called 'n5hm6dsspmjfor3d5akscs.gz' and then another called 'rblsat02tsnsr899bpjig2.gz'.
- tonylemesmer 9y agoSame - When I visited the site I got a load of application download requests - seems like it has been compromised unless its some corrupted image lazy loader?
- xexers 9y agoSame here
- waltwalther 9y agoSame. The site attempted to download multiple files to my machine. Beware of this site. I did not examine the files, only deleted them.
- aceofspad4s 9y agoI did not get anything like that. Are you sure your ad blocker is up to date?
- toyg 9y agoSame. I want to be charitable and believe some content-compressing mechanism was misconfigured. Who would ever distribute a virus as ".gz"?
- dang 9y agoSince this comment was posted we've changed the URL. Context at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16052728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16052728.
- dangerboysteve 9y agoIt's actually nice to see people smiling in these old photos. Something that was absent in posed photos of those days.
- fyfy18 9y agoI was thinking the same. I wonder if he knew them or they are strangers. I grew up in a village and if you saw someone, even if you didn't know them (although you knew most people), you'd say hello, but it's strange to imagine that happening in a city today.
- woodpanel 9y agoLooking at the pictures it seems that they were taken exactly in the moment of greeting the photographer (People with their hands on hats...). The way the function of the camera is described, using the gestures of greeting someone may have nicely helped in keeping his camera a secret. Also: Indeed, very nice to see people smiling in that time! I wonder how much the grim-looking portraits we know add to the cliche of hard-ship and sadness we have of earlier times. Then, having to look that way when being portrayed may stemmed from who were the earliest people being portrayed: Saints, Kings and Queens.
- mikestew 9y agoThen, having to look that way when being portrayed may stemmed from who were the earliest people being portrayed: Saints, Kings and Queens. That certainly might have contributed to the lack of smiling, yes. From sources I have long since lost, it is my understanding that portraits were expensive, and photographs were serious business. Add to that the fact of...umm, why do we smile for photographs again? I do it because everyone else does. Build a time machine, and someone from the 1800s is going to ask, "why does everyone in your photographs look like a smiling idiot? Was there a rash of some brain-eating disease in your time?" I've also heard the theory based on exposure times, but by the very late 1800s exposure times had dropped dramatically. Though it could be argued that not smiling was a carry-over from the days of long exposure. Again, though, documentation I've seen simply said, "that's just how it was done". Fashions change, just like we don't wear corsets anymore (well, I don't; but I don't judge), now we smile for pictures.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ksherlock 9y agoOriginal page, with more pictures, including a (modern) picture of the camera itself - https://www.boredpanda.com/spy-camera-secret-street-photography-carl-stormer-norway/ https://www.boredpanda.com/spy-camera-secret-street-photogra...
- toyg 9y agoNot that "secretly" taken: one of the subjects is indicating the camera, and most subjects are also looking straight at it. More like "unauthorizedly" taken.
- joshua4 9y agoIn those days I doubt they would know what it is even if they notice something
- lerie82 9y agoI suspected the same, but maybe he was actually explaining it in some of the photos.
- Digory 9y agoIt looks to arouse the same response you might get from Google Glass. When approached by a young man with a camera lens sticking out of his jacket, younger subjects seem to be amused; some of the older subjects are not.
- dang 9y agoOk we'll change to that from https://mymodernmet.com/carl-stormer-hidden-camera-photography/ https://mymodernmet.com/carl-stormer-hidden-camera-photograp.... Thanks!
- Footkerchief 9y agoFor anyone else who's interested, the original source appears to be the Norsk Folkemuseum: https://digitaltmuseum.no/search/?q=NF.01065&aq=owner%3F%3A%22NF%22&sv=images https://digitaltmuseum.no/search/?q=NF.01065&aq=owner%3F%3A%... That's the closest thing I could find to a gallery of just the photos, without social media stuff.
- stuaxo 9y agoWTH, as I scroll down the page I get loads of dialogues saying firefox has downloaded different cryptically named gzip files.
- waltwalther 9y agoSame here. Several people have commented same. Site may have been compromised.
- esMazer 9y agonot in chrome
- dang 9y agoUrl since changed; see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16053599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16053599.
- maho 9y agoWhenever I see pictures from the pre-WW1-era I marvel at the shoes people wore back then. From the outside they appear comfortable, sturdy, and elegant. I wonder which would be more comfortable to wear -- hand-made, customized shoes from a 1900's-inspired, experienced shoemaker, or modern, mass-produced sneakers (which are pretty comfortable to begin with).
- maxxxxx 9y agoI don't know how the 1900 shoes but I much prefer good leather shoes over sneakers.
- samstave 9y agoSame here. Must have a good leather sole as well. Finding that is hard. But I had a pair of shoes from a Spanish (Spain) brand whos name escapes me - but best shoes I have ever had. I had them re-soled twice as I loved them so much. Also, watching vids of bespoke shoemaking is satisfying https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs3EJmuzAoA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs3EJmuzAoA Edit: I recall the shoe company: Mezlan.com - they don’t make the shoe I had any longer, but the quality of their shoes is top notch for the price.
- criddell 9y agoI'm the exact opposite. I often work at a standing desk and I can last a lot longer standing in sneakers than leather shoes. The big reason though is that I'd much rather have 4 pairs of $100 sneakers than one pair of $400 leather shoes. I get bored of wearing the same shoes and being able to frequently swap them out for new ones is part of the appeal.
- Antimachides 9y agoI'll take a nice pair of well-worn cowboy boots over the "comfort" of a sneaker any day.
- toyg 9y agoOn average, sneakers will always win. Making shoes by hand is hard. On excellence, it's really about taste and task. A comfortable leather shoe is heavenly, but you still wouldn't run in it. They will smell less though. This said, pre-WWI shoes were already mass-manufactured for the most part. Mechanization arrived in mid-19th century.
- kposehn 9y agoOP here - apologies all, looks like this should have been the BoredPanda url in retrospect. Funny enough, I thought BoredPanda was a social click farm by the name and when I went to MyModernMet I had no issues. @Mods can we change the link to: https://www.boredpanda.com/spy-camera-secret-street-photography-carl-stormer-norway/ https://www.boredpanda.com/spy-camera-secret-street-photogra...
- aresant 9y agoFor the Bay Area contingent, a similar series of candid photographs taken by Walker Evans in the 1940s - 60s is one of the current MOMA exhibitions if you're looking for an excuse
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rrauenza 9y agoHere's a little more on the camera: https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/08/16/alexiadis-vest-pocket-spy-camera-would-have-intrigued-sherlock-holmes/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/08/16/alexiadis-vest-pocket... The photographer would wear the 6-inch diameter chrome camera under his vest. The lens would poke out a buttonhole, and the shutter could be tripped by pulling a cord. The camera could shoot six images on a circular dry plate; the photographer would advance the plate by patting his chest to activate a lever. [...] The camera, which retailed at $15, was popular among amateurs and professionals alike. I didn't realize exposure times of film were short enough to get snapshots like this in the 1880's. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_photography_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_photography_techno..., this change was in 1878: Heat ripening of gelatin emulsions is discovered. This greatly increases sensitivity and makes possible very short "snapshot" exposures. edit: Also, $15 is about $400 now: http://www.in2013dollars.com/1890-dollars-in-2018?amount=15 http://www.in2013dollars.com/1890-dollars-in-2018?amount=15
- josephjrobison 9y agoKinda odd that in 2018, these types of buttonhole cameras aren't super easy to find. I mean they have them on spy gear websites, and we all have phones, and there was Google Glass, but nothing super cool that's an obvious choice.
- pavel_lishin 9y agoThe Narrative Clip is similar - the Clip 2 sells for about $200, which isn't too far off from the adjusted price. It's not branded as a spy camera, but looks pretty discreet.
- shakna 9y agoDepends on the quality you want, I guess. A 640x480 VGA camera for Arduino, where the lens is about 1cm, so it'd fit pretty well, is about $5. Throw in a Nano for the board for another $5, and an SD card module for another $5, and you can probably build your own for about $20 all up. Prebuilt, I've seen a few wireless "drone" cameras of similar quality for $20, and a few Chinese shops carry cameras like this [0] for $25 or so. But... If you want better than a crappy VGA, you'll be looking for a while. [0] http://www.dx.com/p/super-mini-small-portable-camera-button-pocket-dv-camcorder-video-recorder-black-485747 http://www.dx.com/p/super-mini-small-portable-camera-button-...
- rebuilder 9y agoNice pictures. But... what happened to using img size tags? The page is very hostile to the viewer since if you start browsing the pictures, it keeps adding photo elements as they load, making it impossible to actually read anything or view the photos until all the images have loaded. Seems to happen a lot to me these days. edit: I should note, the article now links to a better-behaved site.
- johansch 9y agoPeople generally caring about declaring img size attributes died out like 15 years ago. grumble Declaring image sizes doesn't fit into the distributed model that is that is the rage these days, so I guess people don't care since it's so hard. At least it makes their ms/req numbers look great, nevermind that the experience for the actual users sucks.
- kogus 9y agoI always marvel at both the differences and the similarities between pictures like these and today. I hope someone over at https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorizedHistory/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorizedHistory/ takes a crack at some of these.
- JasonFruit 9y agoThere are 33 photos from him at https://imgur.com/a/Eplvs https://imgur.com/a/Eplvs. Several look as though the subject is aware of the camera, and at least a couple don't look pleased about it.
- taneq 9y agoI'm amazed that no one seems to think it's creepy. Go around taking covert photos of strangers these days and see how people react...
- megy 9y agoIt is in public. And if you sneakily take a photo of someone, how would they know to react? On top of that, there are cameras everywhere in public taking covert photos of everyone, I haven't seen anyone react to it.
- taneq 9y agoThey're portraits, not wide angle crowd shots (and yes, the law distinguishes between the two, for privacy and copyright purposes). And the people reacting are the ones you told that you were taking sneaky photos, not the subjects of the photos (although if they did pick it, they also might not be pleased - FTFA: "This is physics professor Kristian Birkeland - the only one of Størmer's subjects to rumble him. Apparently he got quite cross!"). Try taking a bunch of covert photos then showing your friends: "Hey look at these photos I took of people with my spy cam!" I guarantee the reaction won't be entirely positive.
- agoodthrowaway 9y agoIt's still creepy. Doesn't matter if they know or not or if it's routine.
- drzaiusapelord 9y agoThank you for this. All the smart-ass comments on the other site linked was really starting to ruin this for me. There's this wonderful beauty on display here and the response on the boredpanda site is low effort stupid jokes? Come on.
- WalterBright 9y agoThese photos are a treasure. It's remarkable how elegantly dressed everyone was, even the children.
- ekianjo 9y agoThey are elegant because they are probably from the local bourgeoisie. Go out of the city center and I would bet clothes would look way worse than that. It was probably a minority who could afford to dress like that.
- cjmoran 9y agoOr who could afford a $15 camera like that. ($400 in today's money based on another comment)
- dghughes 9y ago> I had a string down through a hole in my trouser pocket, and when I pulled the string the camera took a photo It makes me wonder how obvious it was when he yanked on the string in his pocket.
- pvaldes 9y agoAnd there is the noise also
- exabrial 9y agoI wish people still wore suits all the time
- rublev 9y agoI sort of want to start but don't want to deal with the explaining. My buddy started with the nice leather briefcase and he got relentlessly roasted in college.
- liveoneggs 9y agojust do it; one cool thing about NYC is seeing well-dressed men in every day life
- AlecSchueler 9y agoI've worn a suit almost every day for the past 3 years, no one really mentions it. Looks perfectly casual depending on the tie and jacket you pick. Natural materials for ties somehow look less formal I've found.
- macintux 9y agoPartly in rebellion to the grungy apparel of my co-workers at a Linux company, I started wearing suspenders and a tie most of the time in the early 2000s. Still wore a tie off and on until about 7 years ago, but working from home really killed that for me. Now I have several dozen ties I love and never, ever wear them. A shame, really.
- executesorder66 9y agoI find them very uncomfortable, ugly, and overpriced. I would be very happy if suits would rot in the dustbins of history. I guess everyone has different tastes.
- thomasfl 9y agoThe fellow with the round glasses is and a moustache, is physics professor Kristian Birkeland. While working on an electric cannon he had invented, he came up with a theory that could explain the northern lights (stella borealis). The photographer himself and professor Birkeland went on expeditions together in the arctic parts of norway. Few believed in Birkeland’s theories, until modern satelites proved he was actually right and it’s electromagnetic. To me it seems like some of the young women liked the photographer. Some of my ancestors lived in Oslo at that time, and could be present in some of the photos. As an inhabitant of Oslo myself, these photos are a real gem.
- FredrikMeyer 9y agoHis grandson is actually a mathematics professor at my university: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erling_St%C3%B8rmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erling_St%C3%B8rmer Really funny and amicable guy.
- twic 9y agoIf you like blurry old candid photos of people about town, you might be interested in the work of Miroslav Tichý, who from the '60s to the '80s made his own cameras, that were so rubbish they didn't look real, so people didn't behave as if they were being photographed [1]: https://fstoppers.com/natural-light/photographer-snaps-nearly-hundred-photos-day-homemade-camera-4848 https://fstoppers.com/natural-light/photographer-snaps-nearl... http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2013/february/25/miroslav-tich-show-uncovers-unseen-images/ http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2013/febru... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Tich%C3%BD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Tich%C3%BD [1] maybe
- m-localhost 9y agoTichy is one of a kind. Such an interesting person (or maybe just a creep ^^)
- grawprog 9y agoI always really like old photographs of everyday life. It's always amazing how different but still similar life was.
- checkgeeves 9y ago1. I seem to recall this from the childhood, but its not proven that people did not use to make duckfaces. 2. James Bond was real and from Norway. 3. These are actually really cool.
- ryeguy_24 9y agoI just figured out why I think these photos are so interesting. I thought about these photos all day and couldn’t stop wondering why. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an old photo of people that weren’t posing. I feel like these photos are a magical window into life back then. It’s so amazing and eerie at the same time. Look at them tip their hats to greet the man. Look at these people walking down the street, petting their cats, and enjoying life. But yet they are all gone and don’t know how the world changed. Amazing.
- 317070 9y agoLook at how clean those streets are! Is there someone from Oslo who can comment on these streets now? Are they still as clean (because they're in the political district?) or did we make our cities more dirty since then?
- anyfoo 9y agoAre you American? Streets in plenty of European cities still look like that.
- talldan 9y agoOslo is a very clean city, but it also feels a lot busier now than it looks in these pictures. A lot of the photos were taken around the parliament buildings, the royal palace, and the national theatre, which may explain why the streets are so clean and the standard of attire is so high.
- agoodthrowaway 9y agoIs it me or was his original motivation to take a photo of a woman he was sweet on without her knowing kind of creepy?
- d3sandoval 9y agoClicked the article thinking maybe a Norwegian Google Streetview competitor had invented time travel... Was still worth the read! Was not disappointed.
- ForFreedom 9y agoDid not know they could take pics with quick shutter speeds, theres barely any blur in movement.
- digi_owl 9y agoThe more that changes the more it stays the same.