First Communion in Louisville, Kentucky
By: usermattw
Tags: First Communion, Louisville, photography, vintage photography
Category: Children
What it is:
Photo (4 x 5.5 inches) mounted on a cardboard frame/backing (6 x 8 inches).
What I know about it:
Photographer is Doerr of Louisville, KY. Otherwise undated and unidentified.
Comments:
This is, I gather, a photo commemorating a First Communion. I have a bunch of these scattered throughout my collection, including several from South America. These days, photos are so easy and disposable that images of our lives are ubiquitous. But with pictures like this from the days when getting your picture taken was something special, it it easier to see which occasions held significance.
Pics of Then 
Interesting point. Going through a photo album will be a totally different experience when the next generation of kids group up – thousands upon thousands of photos, none of them particularly remembered.
Your grandfather took hundreds of first communion pictures as a professional photographer. In Western Pennsylvania in the 50s the boys wore white suits and the girls had white dresses and veils. It WAS a very important event.
Will you be posting other First Communion photos? Do you have any in which boys and girls are dressed in white? Also, do you happen to have bar/bat mitzvah photos? Just curious!
Sure, I’ll post more! I’m just aiming for variety and trying not to post too many of the same thing in a row. I think I mostly have boy Communion photos, though I must have a girl or two. (I have more high school graduation photos of girls than boys, but more Communion photos of boys than girls. Go figure.) And I don’t recall any bar/bat mitzvah photos. That’s not because I don’t want them in my collection, it’s just a question of whether they’ve been available and affordable. I get the sense they are a bit rarer, though I could be wrong. Similarly, photos of racial minorities are fewer in my collection because vintage ones are rarer and therefore more expensive.
Thank you! I was just asking out of curiosity, so please don’t feel that it’s a request! I love seeing whatever photo you choose to post.