Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: composite photographs

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of church, chapel, or any other religious building . Caption: "Get Right with God." Painted on the side of the building: "Anderson Campaign Ta[bernacle]." This is a real photo postcard with a photomontage consisting of five giant heads peering over the top of a large wooden building. "Get Right with God" is the admonition at the top, and the sign on the building identifies it as the "Anderson Campaign Tabernacle." I also have a second copy of this card that has the name of a photographer -- "D. W. Faulk, 7 Second Ave., Coatesville, Pa." -- embossed on it. A different version of this real photo postcard that I spotted online is captioned, "Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out," with the location given as "Coatesville, Pa." On the back of all three of the photo postcards is a Noko stamp box design (with "NOKO" on all four sides) that indicates a time frame ranging from 1907 to 1929. After some searching, I discovered that "Anderson" refers to George Wood Anderson, a minister who ran some of his first large-scale revival meetings in a tabernacle building in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, in 1914. As reported in the Christian Advocate , December 3, 1914, p. 36: "The Rev. George Wood Anderson, pastor of Elm Park Church, Scranton, Pa., has been conducting for six weeks an evangelistic campaign at Coatesville, Pa., an industrial town of 11,000 people. The service has been carried on in a tabernacle specially constructed. The local paper tabulates results, showing total attendance 140,700, with 2,208 conversions.... Beginning next spring, Dr Anderson will leave the regular pastorate, to devote his life to evangelism, in obedience to an impulse which he has long felt." A later photo of the "George Wood Anderson Evangelistic Party" appeared in the Christian Workers Magazine , May 1916, p. 712, and allowed me to identify some of the giant heads on this photo card. That's George Wood Anderson himself on the left, his wife Nellie Anderson next to him, and Miss Agnes Smith, director of women's work, in the middle. The man on the right is Carl Leonard, business manager, but I haven't been able to determine who the man next to him is. George Wood Anderson went on to build tabernacles in other states to continue his revival campaigns. A recent Facebook posting by the Logan County History Center , for instance, describes his evangelistic services and provides photos of tabernacles in Bellefontaine and Belle Center, Ohio.

Agnes Conrad circled her high school portrait (in the lower right-hand corner), which was part of a montage of 98 photos that formed the letters "NCHS" on a real photo postcard in 1915. For more information, see the full version of this real photo postcard.

For more information, see the full version of this real photo postcard.

For more information, see the full version of this real photo postcard.

"NCHS, Class of 1915, Photo by Seavy." The heads of 98 members of the class of 1915 at New Castle High School in New Castle, Pennsylvania, form the letters "NCHS" in this remarkable photographic montage by Edgar E. Seavy (for information about the photographer, see Seavy's Photo Studio - New Castle PA , a Lawrence County Memoirs article by Jeff Bales, Jr.). It must have been an exacting task to cut out and assemble the 98 portraits to form the letters and then re-photograph the whole thing in order to produce a real photo postcard like this one (mouse over the image to see enlargements of the left half , right half , and letter S ). Although the card is addressed on the back to "Miss Edna Wenger, Berlin, Pa.," there's no stamp or postmark, indicating that it was sent through the mail in an envelope rather than separately as a postcard. In addition to the address, the back of the card is filled with various notes, one of which says, "Here are the pictures of the class to be graduated this year. You will find me in the letter S [see the circled face]. We are all busy now getting ready for senior parties, junior-senior banquet, commencement, and class night. Agnes." Another note written later in a different hand identifies Agnes as "Papa's cousin, Agnes Conrad Allen. Head of state Rainbow Girls." So it was Agnes Conrad (her marriage to Charles E. Allen took place in 1920) whose photo appears in the S and who was busy getting ready for her high school graduation in 1915. As the note also suggested, she later served for over fifty years as a leader in the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls in Pennsylvania. After high school, Agnes graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, taught elementary school, worked as a newspaper reporter, and participated in several other organizations besides the Rainbow Girls before she passed away in 1983 at the age of 86 ("Mrs. Agnes Allen," obituary, New Castle News , Jan. 7, 1983, p. 3). Here are the rest of the notes that Agnes wrote on the back of the card: "I hope to see you all next year and then I suppose I will be able to tell you everything that has been going on and make up for lost time." "Tell your mother that my mother will write to her some time again. She is so busy now with house-cleaning. She speaks of cousin Lydia so often and how much she would like to see her." "Clara has been sick with tonsillitis but is almost well again. If I keep on writing, this will be a letter."

"Pomeroy's Juvenile Hour. WEEU. Bernie, program director. Photo by Pomeroy's." Pomeroy's was a department store that had locations in Reading, Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre, and other Pennsylvania cities. This real photo postcard, which shows the Reading store in the upper left-hand corner, was used to advertise Pomeroy's Juvenile Hour radio show, which debuted sometime in the 1930s. Various local radio stations carried the show, including WEEU in Reading and WHP in Harrisburg. Pomeroy's ran ads for the Juvenile Hour in newspapers, too, as this excerpt from the Harrisburg Telegraph , Sept. 29, 1932, p. 8, demonstrates: "Pomeroy's, 'Harrisburg's Greatest Department Store,' Saturday, 9:30 a.m. You are invited to attend our first 'Juvenile Hour' radio broadcast direct from our broadcasting studio on the third floor. See and hear Harrisburg's future radio stars as they broadcast over radio station WHP. These performers are all between the ages of 2 and 12, and you'll marvel at their exhibition. If you are unable to attend the broadcast in person, tune in at 9:30 Saturday morning on station WHP and you'll get an hour of radio sunshine and happiness that will thrill you for a long time to come. Pomeroy's 'Juvenile Hour' will be on the air every Saturday morning, 9:30 to 10:30."

A cars photo for the Vintage Photos Theme [Car] Park . A car and trailer are the focus of this photographic greeting card from "George and Norma," who have compiled a montage of images illustrating their transition from the chilly northern United States to the sunny south. Their car is magically pulling a trailer through a holly wreath, transporting them from the snowy northern woods to the grassy slopes of a southern golf course. Perhaps that's Norma--barely visible--standing beside the travel trailer. And presumably George is one of the golfers playing among the palm trees. In any case, it's evident that they've willingly traded a pair of ice skates for a set of golf clubs in order to spend the holiday where the weather is warmer.

What appears to be a photo of tourists bravely enduring the tumultuous waves of the whirlpool rapids in the gorge below Niagara Falls is actually a composite photo concocted in a photographer's studio. For an illustration showing how the photographer achieved this effect, see "How to Visit Niagara Falls Without Leaving Home," part of the American Museum of Photography's Montages, Multiples, and Mischief page. The Whirlpool Rapids Bridge (formerly known as the Lower Steel Arch Bridge) is visible in the background of the photo, and a second bridge, the Niagara Cantilever Bridge , is partially visible behind it.