[Western Photographica]: [Travel]:

[Vernacular Photograph Album Documenting Travel Through Virginia Beach, Chicago, New Orleans, Texas, and Arizona].

[Various places]: 1927-1930. Ninety-nine photographs on fifty leaves, various sizes but many approximately 7 x 6 inches. Oblong octavo. Original brown covers, typed paper label; black paper leaves. Covers a bit worn, corners heavily so. Minor soiling to contents, a few photos with some light silver mirroring. Images each with typed captions in the negative. Very good. Item #2033

A handsome vernacular vacation album with images taken by a skilled photographer with a keen eye for composition and lighting. Each image has a typed caption printed in the negative, and most photos are one per page and quite large. The cover label indicates trips to Chicago, Virginia Beach, New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Tucson, and Phoenix over the course of three years. The album opens with several handsome panoramic shots of the Chicago skyline and Grant Park, before moving on to scenes of sand dunes at Virginia Beach. The remaining forty leaves, however, show images of New Orleans and the Southwest, all captured in artistic detail. Among the more interesting scenes are "Civil War Tenements - Church Street - New Orleans"; "At Twilight the Old Mission Concepcion, San Antonio - Texas"; "U.S. Veterans Hospital - Tucson". There are many sweeping scenes of desert scenery and cactus, some well-composed tourist shots in San Antonio at the zoo and Brackenridge Park, and a series of three images of the Rodeo Parade in Tucson in 1930 showing the cowboys, cowgirls, and "Indians" marching in the parade.

There are also street scenes in each city documenting the growing urban landscape and its buildings. One such shows the Alamo and is captioned, "The famous Alamo and the Medical Arts Building. The old and the new - San Antonio, Texas." Though the photographer is unidentified, he has taken a self-portrait in Audubon Park in New Orleans which shows a middle-aged man in spectacles wearing a fedora and a plaid suit. An unusually nice vernacular photo album comprised of sharp and artistic photographs documenting scenes of tourism and travel in the late 1920s.

Price: $750