JF Ptak Science Books: World War I Photography

Relaxed Time at a Sentry Post, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books

Another interesting portrait within a photograph--this is one in a long series of images from the blog's WWI News Photo Service Photography section, which can be found here and which will explain the purpose of pool photography during the War.  This image (explained in the original paper caption below) was made somewhere along the front at the intersection of French and Belgian lines.  The soldiers are gathered around a sentry post, enjoying some light time.  

 

 

•  WWI News Photo Service Photograph, 1918. 5.5x7.75", with the original paper caption.  Good condition.  $125

And another detail: 

 

 

The French Blue Devils at West Point, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books  

I really enjoy looking at old photos with a magnifying glass, finding the pictures within the picture, until it is micro-images all the way down. It is odd "coming out" of them, sometimes, and then looking at the full image, and in some sense feeling utterly at a loss to try and find where you had just been in great detail.  

Here's an example with this great photo of the French Blue Devils on parade at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.  These soldiers were and are elite mountain infantry, the Chassons Alpins, "Alpine Hunters", and nicknamed "the Blue Devils", and who saw their fair share of combat during WWI.  They made a tour of the U.S.at the beginning of the War in a fund raising drive, and evidently did so again, at least in this instance, showing up in New York in May 1918.  

 

 

• Image 7.5x9.5". The black mark/tear appears int he photographic negative itself and no tint he paper print. The photo is accompanied by the text sheet (below). $250

This is a news photo service photograph (see here for the story) and is accompanied by this text which was supposed to be used along with the image when purchased for publication in a newspaper or magazine.  

Tired, Wounded, and Underground, 1917.

JF Ptak Science Books  

This is a photograph of an aid station somewhere along the Western Front, 1917. Given the amount of digging going on throughout the course of the war, with the construction of hundreds of thousands of miles of trenches, and then the sapper war to tunnel underneath the tunnels and so on, it is quite possible that this underground shelter was dug out by hand. This is also an insight to the duration of some of those battles--to construct such a station impervious to possibly semi-continuous bombardment meant that the lines of battle were static, with many of the major engagements of hundreds of thousands of soldiers lasting for months, and in some cases, years. 

The expressions here are difficult, and difficult to actually recognize as anything that isn't exhaustion. There is a lot of "blankness" in the faces, a deep weariness.  

This scene is a detail from the larger and full image: 

 

WWI News Photo Service photograph, 9x7 inches, with the accompanying caption text.  $150