The Jersey Shore…Again

I often wonder about the beginnings of clichés. Who started them? Who thought them up before they became cliché? If photographing people seated on the side of the lifeguard’s boat at the shore was a cliché at the time that John B Capewell shot this picture, it was a very young one!

Capewell must have been behind the camera which was probably shot the same day as the photo featured in last week’s post. Capewell is in Atlantic City, New Jersey with members of his family perched on the side a rowboat — a visual dead horse that the general public would be beating over the next century as photography became cheaper and easier.

John’s wife Ella is on the far right and is wearing the best hat of the group.

Right in the middle is one of John Capewell’s brothers. I recognize him from a family portrait which appeared in an earlier post. He was sporting a mustache in the other photo, but I still recognize him. The Capewell boys and girls all seemed to have the same ears.

I think he may be James George Capewell (1880 – 1960.)

I wonder what the deal was with the shoes. Were they canvas for kicking around the beach? Were they some sort of spats?

On the far left is one of Capewell’s younger sisters.

If she is the youngest of John Capewell’s sisters as I suspect, she is Edna Lavinia (Honey) Capewell (1896-1975.) She looks to be a teenager and is giving a sullen expression which would also become a cliché in family photographs.

As with all of the photographs in the Capewell Collection, I placed the 5″ x 7″ glass negative on a lightbox and shot them with a digital camera locked down on a tripod. The “processing” was done digitally on a Mac using Adobe Photoshop.

If you’re new to this collection of John B. Capewell’s glass negatives, use the handy navigation links below to explore earlier posts! Don’t forget to LIKE The Capewell Glass Negative page on Facebook!

The Capewell Glass Negative Collection

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