Man in uniform with his gal
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Today I went to the Oakland Museum’s enormous White Elephant Sale. The upside is that it tends to have a lot of things I want. The downside is that it tends to have a lot of things I want. I was pretty moderate today, but I still came away with a bunch of vintage photos I liked, including this one. It’s about 4.5 x 6.5 inches, and seems to have been previously mounted in an album. There are two things I find especially charming about this image. One is the doubly possessive pose, with him holding her waist, and her holding his hat. The other is the sweet effort somebody made at tinting the photo, down to such details as her jewelry and his buttons. It’s not perfect, but it looks like somebody cared. EDIT: I forgot to mention that calling her “his gal” was an assumption on my part. The pose is affectionate, but she may be, say, his sister. Since they aren’t identified here, I can’t be completely sure what their relationship is.
Pics of Then 
The blue of her skirt is very nice, and it seems authentic. What do you think about the color of her hair? Her blouse is pretty and feminine, with delicate flared cuffs. She’s wearing a wedding ring. I think they were a couple, although we can’t be 100% certain.
You’re likely right about the ring. As for the colors, I assume we’re supposed to understand that she’s a redhead, though the particular shade here is not likely the shade that actually grew out of her head. It’s sort of weirdly purplish and metallic. But the closer I look, the more I believe there is other tinting that’s faded with time. I think there was a brown applied to his uniform and hair, even his eyes and eyebrows. If it’s faded that much, it makes me wonder if the red hair and blue skirt started out some other shade, too.
I hadn’t considered that the colors might have changed over time. Her hair is a nice color, just not natural. It makes me think of young women today who dye their hair an unusual color. For that reason, it makes her seem both youthful and oddly modern. She was quite pretty, and this is a very good picture of her.
Her beau wasn’t bad-looking himself, but his serious expression makes him appear older than he probably was. I hope he wasn’t headed off to the front lines in WWI.
I agree with it being a strangely modern-looking hair color. And yeah, without context I suppose it’s impossible to know for sure, but it’s quite possible he was involved in WWI. The presence of uniforms in pictures like this often add a note of melancholy for me looking at them in retrospect.
FWIW, I’ve done a little bit of photo tinting by hand, and it’s not a forgiving medium. Some of the colored inks sold for this remind me of commercial Easter egg dye/food coloring droppers. I’m curious about what method they used here. Maybe some expert could tell.
Cool that you have that experience. I certainly don’t have the expertise to tell what was used, but at least it was something that didn’t obscure the image itself.