Old photos of smokers

[The Green Monkey]

Someone shared this link with me today and I thought that people here may enjoy looking through it as well. It's a website of orphaned snapshots generally from the '30s through the '70s or so, organized into common themes.

There's a neat album centered around smoking, and while most of the pictures feature cigarettes rather than cigars, I figured I'd pass it along anyway.

Smoke (link).

Take a gander through the rest of the site if you're so inclined. I find it fascinating, a little creepy, and somehow simultaneously both uplifting and depressing.

 

[Easto]

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting.

 

[sack]

Someone shared this link with me today and I thought that people here may enjoy looking through it as well. It's a website of orphaned snapshots generally from the '30s through the '70s or so, organized into common themes.

There's a neat album centered around smoking, and while most of the pictures feature cigarettes rather than cigars, I figured I'd pass it along anyway.

Smoke (link).

Take a gander through the rest of the site if you're so inclined. I find it fascinating, a little creepy, and somehow simultaneously both uplifting and depressing.

Not sure why you think these photos are creepy, i grew up with all the adults smoking cigarettes and no one died of cancer. Of course, as seen through younger eyes, i could see where they may look different. In those days beauty was considerably different from today. These pictures took me to my youth. Thanks! :thumbs:

 

[The Green Monkey]

I feel like the entire site is vaguely creepy not because of the smoking, but because it feels like you're somehow interrupting the private, personal moments of likely or possibly dead strangers. Back in those days, people generally only brought out the camera for special or significant occasions--not the media saturated world we've got today where most of us have a camera in our pockets all the time and don't even think twice about it. In 1939, a roll of Kodachrome film cost $5--half a week's pay at the then-newly mandated federal minimum wage.

I wonder what emotions the subject and photographer associated with that picture, that day, that time in their lives. Was it a happy or sad time? Did their lives get better or worse from that day forward? Are they by any chance still alive? What sort of people did they become after those pictures were taken? Are they people who went on to accomplish great things and make a difference in the world in some way, or were they only barely noticed even by those closest to them?

I also feel a similar brand of this unusual mixture of curiosity, fascination, inference, and vicarious nostalgia when watching old reruns on The Game Show Network.

 

[Devil Doc]

Someone shared this link with me today and I thought that people here may enjoy looking through it as well. It's a website of orphaned snapshots generally from the '30s through the '70s or so, organized into common themes.

There's a neat album centered around smoking, and while most of the pictures feature cigarettes rather than cigars, I figured I'd pass it along anyway.

Smoke (link).

Take a gander through the rest of the site if you're so inclined. I find it fascinating, a little creepy, and somehow simultaneously both uplifting and depressing.

Not sure why you think these photos are creepy, i grew up with all the adults smoking cigarettes and no one died of cancer. Of course, as seen through younger eyes, i could see where they may look different. In those days beauty was considerably different from today. These pictures took me to my youth. Thanks! :thumbs:

My youngest son, now 23, used too think the world was black and white before he was born. Kids, it's as if nothing existed prior to their perceptions.

Doc.

 

[JHolmes763]

Very cool and interesting pictures...

 

[Rebel Herfer]

VERY cool site! Thank you for sharing, it is a bit personal/voyeristic, but cool nonetheless. :thumbs:

 

[amateuraficionado]

Someone shared this link with me today and I thought that people here may enjoy looking through it as well. It's a website of orphaned snapshots generally from the '30s through the '70s or so, organized into common themes.

There's a neat album centered around smoking, and while most of the pictures feature cigarettes rather than cigars, I figured I'd pass it along anyway.

Smoke (link).

Take a gander through the rest of the site if you're so inclined. I find it fascinating, a little creepy, and somehow simultaneously both uplifting and depressing.

Not sure why you think these photos are creepy, i grew up with all the adults smoking cigarettes and no one died of cancer. Of course, as seen through younger eyes, i could see where they may look different. In those days beauty was considerably different from today. These pictures took me to my youth. Thanks! :thumbs:

My youngest son, now 23, used too to think the world was black and white before he was born. Kids, it's as if nothing existed prior to their perceptions.

Doc.

You mean it wasn't? ??? :sign:

 

[Devil Doc]

Ah geez! Sister James Mary, wherever you are, have mercy.

Doc.

 

[JHolmes763]

My youngest son, now 23, used too to think the world was black and white before he was born. Kids, it's as if nothing existed prior to their perceptions.

Doc.

You mean it wasn't? ??? :sign:

I think it was only in color for those that could afford it... ???

 

[LOCAL669]

really??? Anyway, great photos. It's really cool to see old black and whites, they capture a way of life before mine. Great stuff

 

[in2xshp]

This is an intresting look into a past that most have forgotten (where smoking was always accepted). I think that every picture that was taken, was taken with true passion, capturing a single moment in time where everything was a great deal more simple. Thanks for sharing this link.

 

[MoeCizlak]

That second picture from the top, the one where the guy is partially covering his face, looks a lot like Will Rogers to me.

 

[g-smoke]

It is all a little creepy, I agree, and in a good way. Lots of great story ideas popping into my head as I look through these images.

Nice find.

 

[Petthefish]

As a photographer and a cigar smoker I think the pics are awesome show a bit of Americana that has been lost to bans and health warnings rp

 

[Lightninrod]

Fantastic pics! Thank you.

And Rebel Herfer; what a stunning avatar.


Dan

 

[ilcchef2]

...like a David Lynch movie!!

 

[JHolmes763]

There's even a cigar girl or two...

 

[DesertRat]

Neat pictures. Reminds me of looking through our old photo albums.

Amazing to see how not only the view of cigarette smoking has changed but the changes in fashion and interior decorating as well over the years.

I can't believe we once thought that clear vinyl slip covers on the furniture was stylish! Which brings to mind the 70's when it seemed that American society en masse believe that there were really only three primary colors to be used when decorating your home. Avocado Green, Burnt Orange and Navajo White.


Danny

 

[Infinity]

Why is it creepy?

Keep in mind, 99% of people smoked in those times.

These pics are just pics of ordinary folk who happen to be smoking. :whistling:

Nice pics though.

Brian