photo detective Archives - Maureen Taylor The Photo Detective Tue, 24 May 2022 13:03:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://maureentaylor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/cropped-site-icon-32x32.png photo detective Archives - Maureen Taylor 32 32 99869351 Episode 143: Ask Maureen August 2021 Edition https://maureentaylor.com/episode-143-ask-maureen-august-2021-edition/ Sun, 29 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=69066 Every month Maureen does a live Q & A on Facebook and YouTube answering questions submitted by listeners. Have a question?  Email her at photodetective@maureentaylor.com This month’s questions: How did Maureen become The Photo Detective? Summertime hazards for photos Disaster planning tips Did snapshots get mounted on card stock?  Related Episodes: Episode 138: Ask Maureen. […]

The post Episode 143: Ask Maureen August 2021 Edition appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]>

Every month Maureen does a live Q & A on Facebook and YouTube answering questions submitted by listeners. Have a question?  Email her at photodetective@maureentaylor.com

This month’s questions:

  • How did Maureen become The Photo Detective?
  • Summertime hazards for photos
  • Disaster planning tips
  • Did snapshots get mounted on card stock? 

Episode 138: Ask Maureen. July 2021 Edition

Episode 125: Ask Maureen. April 2021 Edition

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 143: Ask Maureen August 2021 Edition appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]> 69066 Episode 141: Postal History Stories of Selling and Collecting with Jim Mehrer https://maureentaylor.com/episode-141-postal-history-stories-of-selling-and-collecting/ Sun, 15 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=69059 From stamps to envelopes and postcards, my guest’s collecting passions expanded when he bought a few cards at a sale and became fascinated by the postmarks (and messages). He’s an expert on postmarks and using them as a photo clue. We chat about the golden age of postcard printing and the bits of history a […]

The post Episode 141: Postal History Stories of Selling and Collecting with Jim Mehrer appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]>

From stamps to envelopes and postcards, my guest’s collecting passions expanded when he bought a few cards at a sale and became fascinated by the postmarks (and messages). He’s an expert on postmarks and using them as a photo clue. We chat about the golden age of postcard printing and the bits of history a postcard can convey including a link to President Garfield’s assassination. Jim Mehrer tells some great stories relating to postcards–why they were sent and why we should definitely read the backs of old cards. I know he’s inspired me to take a second look at the ones in my collection.

Episode 139: Collecting Postcards for a Half-Century with Mark Routh

Episode 104: Clues in Group Portraits and Albums

About My Guest:

Jim Mehrer is an Illinois native and lifelong resident. After graduating from Augustana College in Rock Island, he spent several years managing independent retail stores. 

In 1993, Jim combined his business management experience with his hobby interests and established Jim Mehrer’s Postal History. Since then, he has offered hundreds of thousands of items to collectors of postal history and postcards in his mail bid sales. Also, Jim offers related storage supplies and reference literature, including several titles that he has compiled and published. 
Information about Jim’s business and the products he offers is on his websites at www.postal-history.com and www.deltiology.com.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 141: Postal History Stories of Selling and Collecting with Jim Mehrer appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]> 69059 Episode 139: Collecting Postcards for a Half Century with Mark Routh https://maureentaylor.com/episode-139-collecting-postcards-with-mark-routh/ Sun, 01 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=69051 It’s time for another themed month. This time it’s postcards.  Three guests this month share stories about their personal connections with these mailable images. In this episode, English collector Mark Routh chats about his collection which spans 1869 to the present. He has some museum-quality gems. Did you know that dirigibles mailed items for their […]

The post Episode 139: Collecting Postcards for a Half Century with Mark Routh appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]>

It’s time for another themed month. This time it’s postcards.  Three guests this month share stories about their personal connections with these mailable images. In this episode, English collector Mark Routh chats about his collection which spans 1869 to the present. He has some museum-quality gems. Did you know that dirigibles mailed items for their passengers?  Neither did I.  You won’t believe how many postcards he’s accumulated in his lifetime.  It all began with a single card that his father gave him.  

Episode 116: America and the Tintype with Steven Kasher

Episode 108: Researching the Ships of Our Ancestors

About My Guest:

Mark Routh’s postcard collection began 50 years ago.  He’s a recently retired police officer.  He has a substantial collection from all periods of postcard production (1869 – 2021).

He  wrote  a regular postcard article for the international magazine Picture Postcard Monthly – 1992 to 2020 (the pandemic closed down the magazine)

He now writes a monthly article for the new international magazine Picture Postcard Collecting which started up in 2020 as a replacement for the previously mentioned magazine.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 139: Collecting Postcards for a Half Century with Mark Routh appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]> 69051 Episode 136: A Lifetime of Love: Collecting Old Photos of New York City with Ray Simone https://maureentaylor.com/episode-136-collecting-old-photos-of-new-york-city/ Sun, 11 Jul 2021 04:05:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=68885 Collecting is often a hobby that starts when we’re in grade school. Did you have a childhood hobby?  I did. I loved learning about family history and old photos. I’m still passionate about it today.   My guest’s hobby of collecting old photographs of famous stars of television and movies is a lifetime pursuit. At some […]

The post Episode 136: A Lifetime of Love: Collecting Old Photos of New York City with Ray Simone appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]>

Collecting is often a hobby that starts when we’re in grade school. Did you have a childhood hobby?  I did. I loved learning about family history and old photos. I’m still passionate about it today.  

My guest’s hobby of collecting old photographs of famous stars of television and movies is a lifetime pursuit. At some point, he began gathering bits of New York’s picture history one box of glass negatives at a time. When I asked him about the size of his collection, he laughed. Yup…that a clue to how many pictures in his collection. A LOT.  Prints get saved (sometimes) but negatives are often discarded, but to Ray Simone, those pieces of history are worth a second look.  We chatted about his lifetime of saving the past, how he preserves his collection, and how you can obtain a print. 

Episode 103:  Organize, Preserve, and Share with Collectionaire.com

Episode 101: Rediscovering an American Community of Color 

About My Guest:

Ray Simone has been a professional photographer for over 20 years,  shooting fashion throughout NYC and product photography.

He has been collecting original vintage photographs since he was 10 years old and when he started shooting professionally he decided to start collecting original camera negatives. Ray would search the city far and wide for them. 6th Ave between 14 & 34th Streets was a treasure trove before the 1990’s came along. There were many empty parking lots on weekends where people would be selling everything you can imagine, but his eye was focused on negatives.

One day about 10 years ago after cleaning up his photo studio Ray decided to start to retouch & restore those negatives and make fine art prints.

All of his prints come from the original camera negative and are printed at the highest HD possible on the finest fine art paper available.

Ray is a born and raised New Yorker.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 136: A Lifetime of Love: Collecting Old Photos of New York City with Ray Simone appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]> 68885 An Altered Reality: One Man. Two Photos https://maureentaylor.com/an-altered-reality-one-man-two-photos/ Sun, 27 Jun 2021 21:41:56 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=67388 One time a reporter asked me to tell them how many photos I’ve seen in my career. I’m simply not able to estimate that number. As a picture person, I look at client images, ones for my collection, and then the ones I use for research purposes. Suffice to say I’ve looked at more images […]

The post An Altered Reality: One Man. Two Photos appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]>

One time a reporter asked me to tell them how many photos I’ve seen in my career. I’m simply not able to estimate that number. As a picture person, I look at client images, ones for my collection, and then the ones I use for research purposes. Suffice to say I’ve looked at more images in my life than I can say. That means it’s a rare photo that makes me go, “What?!” Yet that’s exactly what I said when William Samland showed me two images.

Here’s the first one. It’s his great grandfather. It’s a lovely studio shot of a man in work clothes. Nothing unusual except for the way he wears his watch fob on his hips.

It was the next image that made me go hmm.

It appears that George (or his family) wanted a more formal image of him so they took the first picture to a studio and had them alter it. It’s now a crayon portrait and instead of work clothes George is wearing a suit. Perhaps he went to the same studio a second time, but there is something about this image that makes me think he didn’t. Look closely.

There are a couple of differences. The artist thinned George’s mustache. It’s not unusual to see artistic changes in a crayon sketch.

It’s the same exact pose, chair and background. So were they both created in the same time frame. It’s possible. Crayon portraits like this had stylistic differences depending on when they were made. If the first picture was taken in the 1890s then George would be in his thirties. The color tone of the photo and the background suggests that. The chair is out of the mid 1860s but studios often held on to props. There is no photographer listed on either image.

While this isn’t the first time I’ve seen a double like this, this set is particularly nice. Thank you to Bill Samland for letting me feature his image in this post.

Photo Consults

Do you have a photo you’d like to know more about? I’d love to help. Each consult comes with a recording. There are rates for one, three, or many images.

Find Out More

The post An Altered Reality: One Man. Two Photos appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

]]> 67388