Mental Photographs - an Album for Confessions of Taste, Habits and Convictions
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Bound volume
Various makers
Maker
Mental Photographs - an Album for Confessions of Taste, Habits and Convictions
1869
Albumen silver print
Overall: 21.6 x 18 x 1.5 cm
Gift of Alison Nordström, 2013
2012.0731.0001-0008
DescriptionA commercial product which is intended to combine a photo with a self-interview, this album has a preface with suggestions for its use and space for one carte-de-visite photo and responses to 40 questions on each double-page spread. The questions range from a simple "What is your favorite color" to the more profound "What is your idea of misery?"
As stated in the preface, "This book is intended to serve as a record for the tastes and characteristics of friends, in short, for their mental photographs, just as another class of albums serves to keep the physical ones....the answer can be made in jest or earnest, as best suits the mind and manner of the sitter....if seriously and thoughtfully treated, they will lead to very interesting psychological researches, and if treated as a mere jest and past time, they will prove an endless source of amusement."
There are also instructions for soaking the back off of a commercial carte-de-visite and pasting it again in the space provided on the page.
There are only eight photographs in this album, although a total of twenty-three self-interviews (some pages have been cut out and removed). Of these, most seem to be "mental photographs" of young adults, with the exception of the first entry of a middle aged man.
As stated in the preface, "This book is intended to serve as a record for the tastes and characteristics of friends, in short, for their mental photographs, just as another class of albums serves to keep the physical ones....the answer can be made in jest or earnest, as best suits the mind and manner of the sitter....if seriously and thoughtfully treated, they will lead to very interesting psychological researches, and if treated as a mere jest and past time, they will prove an endless source of amusement."
There are also instructions for soaking the back off of a commercial carte-de-visite and pasting it again in the space provided on the page.
There are only eight photographs in this album, although a total of twenty-three self-interviews (some pages have been cut out and removed). Of these, most seem to be "mental photographs" of young adults, with the exception of the first entry of a middle aged man.
Inscriptions printed on inside page: Mental Photographs - an Album for Confessions of Taste, Habits and Convictions, ed. by Robert Saxton, New York: Leypoldt & Holt, 1869
