indicommons » Then and Now

The Tracksons and Captain McFarlain, Restored

Stephanie Fysh — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:51:16 +0000

Restoration of Commons photos was the subject of a recent discussion in the Flickr Commons group. Here’s a restoration of a Commons photo by a Flickr user that has turned up since then in the group pool. We’re sure there must be more users out there restoring Commons photographs and cleaning up old scans!

State Library of Queensland, Australia	Katarzyna Matylla
ORIGINAL	RESTORED

Then and Now: Naples, Italy, and … ?

Stephanie Fysh — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 11:00:39 +0000

Library of Congress: [Macaroni seller, Naples, Italy]	~Fussel~
THEN	NOW

(Thanks, zyrcster!)

Rephotography, by and from Cornell

Stephanie Fysh — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:09:57 +0000

grotesques

Cornell University Library posted today in the Flickr Commons group Then and Now topic, letting us know that

One of our librarians has done an amazing set of “Rephotography” with the images in our A.D. White Architectural Photos collection.

And it is indeed! Enjoy this set from unionpearl.

Old Stone House, c. 1890/2008

Stephanie Fysh — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:00:04 +0000

As found by Pixel Wrangler:

DC Public Library	dbking
THEN	NOW

Sackville & O’Connell, Dublin, then and now

Stephanie Fysh — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:32:57 +0000

1890s: Library of Congress	2010: shammael
THEN	NOW

Find many more in the Flickr Commons group Then & Now topic for the Library of Congress’s new views-of-Ireland photochrom upload – and watch the Flickr blog for more! In Ireland today and feel like going out to shoot your own, like shammael did? We’d love to see them!

Multnomah Falls: 1899, 2007

Stephanie Fysh — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:00:51 +0000

Sometimes all that seems to change over time is where the photographer is standing, how the camera is held, the color in the photograph.

Oregon State University Archives	SteveA. / (Gigapic)
THEN	NOW

Memphis, Tennessee, Beale Street, October 1939/July 2009

Stephanie Fysh — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:12:43 +0000

Last summer, during a roadtrip from Toronto to New Orleans and back, I took my family on a Memphis mini-adventure, to shoot a Commons “then-and-now”. After the Gibson guitar factory tour, after the tornado warning had ended (it missed us), after a relaxing beer and snacks at a Beale Street bar, where we chatted with the manager about MGMT and the kids signed the wall, we walked up the street in the drizzle to find #318 – or at least where #318 must have been. There’s no jitterbugging here anymore.

New York Public Library	Lú_ (Stephanie Fysh)
THEN	NOW

Then and Now: Senta Osoling and Senta Raizen

Penny — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:44:17 +0000

Perhaps it’s natural, while looking at old photos, to wonder, “What ever happened to that person?” Every once in a while, through comments, tags, and notes in the Flickr Commons, we learn the answer. Score one for crowdsourcing!

One such mystery was solved recently. This lovely image of a girl using a sextant to calculate latitude is from the Library of Congress uploads. The photographer was Alfred T. Palmer; it was taken in Los Angeles on a cloudless day in September 1942. “Learning how to determine latitude by using a sextant is Senta Osoling, student at Polytechnic High School, Los Angeles, Calif. Navigation classes are part of the school’s program for training its students for specific contributions to the war effort” is the descriptive caption.

Learning how to determine latitude by using a sextant is Senta Osoling, student at Polytechnic High School, Los Angeles, Calif. Navigation classes are part of the school's program for training its students for specific contributions to the war effort (LOC)

So, who was Senta Osoling, and whatever happened to her?

Almost two years ago, I tracked down a scientific paper that she co-authored in 1949 — presumably, from the context, when she was a chemistry student (her co-author, Alfred Deutsch, was a graduate student in the department of chemistry at UCLA). The citation is:

Alfred Deutsch and Senta Osoling, “Conductimetric and Potentiometric Studies of the Stoichiometry and Equilibria of Boric Acid-Mannitol Complexes,” Journal of the American Chemical Society 71(5)( May 1949): 1637-1940.

So it’s not exactly a source for personal details. This week, a much better answer came from Flickr user robertvaldivia:

Lovely Senta is now Senta A. Raizen and she is the Director at The National Center for Improving Science Education in Washington, DC.

Raizen earned an MA at Bryn Mawr in 1945, and was a chemist at Sun Oil before moving into policy work. The link robertvaldivia left with this note shows a recent photo of Senta A. Raizen, and gives a summary of her impressive career in science education. And that impressive career apparently started with hands-on science learning when she was a high school student in Los Angeles during World War II.

Then and Now: King Street, Sydney

Stephanie Fysh — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:00:51 +0000

Scott Davies, Looking into the past: King Street, Sydney: c.1900/2009
from the Flickr group Tyrrell Today
(original photograph: Powerhouse Museum)

DC Public Library – and America’s Main Street

Stephanie Fysh — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:00:37 +0000

Congratulations to Shannon Field () for winning the DC Public Library’s Commons-based Then & Now contest! Her winning entry, America’s Main Street, brings Pennsylvania Ave, ca. 1905 over a century into the future. You can see the runners up in the DCPL’s blog entry.

DC Public Library	Shannon Field
THEN	NOW