mug shots!

[K.D. Lightner]

Thanks, now I get it. Neat looking hat, even with the ridge.

karol

 

[SHARPETOYS]

PanamaBob here at the lounge can help you with a Panama straw hat.
Here is his web site but you can pm here.

http://www.panamas.biz/hats.htm

 

[r lush]

(thought this was fun-- there are some really great vintage mug shots here! reposting from boingboing.net)

Mug shots as art
Graphic designer Mark Michaelson has a collection of tens of thousands of vintage mug shots. He's not after famous crooks or celebrities but rather "the small-timers, the least-wanted." Michaelson has posted some of his photos in various Flickr groups and also collected them in a beautiful hardcover coffee table book titled, Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots. The new issue of Smithsonian magazine features an article about Michaelson and a selection of his mug shots.
Images Articles 2007 Jan Pop Mugshot Woman
From the article:

...We are drawn to the photographs by their undeniable authenticity. In this day of flickering instantaneous images and photo-manipulation software, the mugs stare back as rare artifacts. "In an increasingly digital world," Michaelson notes in the book, "the hard copy original is an endangered species." Yet there's something else. The Least Wanted images intrigue us in the way a collection of old passport photos might not. A mug shot captures people at their lowest or most vulnerable. We look hard at their faces, calculating guilt or innocence. And then look harder.​

Link to Smithsonian article, Link to buy Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots

 

[Amy Jeanne]

That book is going on my WishList!! I love vintage mug shots and crime scene photos.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

What an unsavory looking character.

Looks like somebody's butler. The butler did it!

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Roscoe Arbuckle, is it not?

That book is going on my WishList!! I love vintage mug shots and crime scene photos.

-dixon cannon

 

[Fletch]

The Flickr visitors sure had some interesting (sometimes funny) comments on the mug collection.

Interesting, isn't it, that your average law-abiding citizen years ago could live and die without ever having a sharp, detailed picture taken - but some of the most revealing photos are of crimes and criminals.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Yes, that's Fatty Arbuckle. Poor guy!!!!! He looks so sullen in his mugshot.

 

[Fletch]

The White Hat Gang

A particularly dapper little outfit. Collared in New York July 17, 1937.

Call 'em Pudge ('cause he is), Smiler ('cause he doesn't), and Lefty ('cause his tie's knotted the other way around).

 

[SinatraStyle]

In the Golden Era people dressed well, even for mug shots.

 

[flat-top]

There's nothin' like REAL juvenile delinquent pictures!

 

[katiemakeup]

In the Golden Era people dressed well, even for mug shots.

I was going to say the same thing! Even the unsavory types of all walks of life looked put together... when did it all go downhill?

 

[flat-top]

I just got this book--WOW! If want to see what people REALLY looked like, the clothes, the hair.. Oh boy! And like previously stated, the subjects for the most part are very well dressed

 

[killertomata]

Some time ago I found this page featuring female mugshots from the forties, so I submit it here for your perusal.

http://swapatorium.blogspot.com/2004/12/girls-gone-wild.html

Some of the photos are just so... they stimulate the imagination, the looks in their eyes. A couple of these girls look like it might have taken a pair of police officers to bring them in.

Personally, I think this first woman has quite a natural beauty. From her shot, I imagine she was probably hauled in for being a lady of the evening... as it's thought most of these women probably were.

 

[The Captain]

"WANTED!"

This MUGSHOT is my USMC I.D. card photo from 1957. Oh, the horrors!

No, I have never been cau....er,... been arrested! lol

 

[Fletch]

Eek!!! It's Private Oswald!!! lol

 

[Leading Edge]

Anyone else look at mug shots and actively imagine the person smiling and chatting amiably maybe as they make their entrance into the neighborhood bar or pay for a purchase at the Five & Dime?

I find it interesting how mug shots make people look dangerous, but were we to see them on the street or interact with them in the normal spheres of living, they're just regular people (except for people like that out of control neighbor of MrNewportCustom; here's hoping they lose the key to that one's cage).

Hmm. On second thought, that's a little scary - make that a lot scary.

 

[dhermann1]

I spent about 45 minutes at Strand Bookstore a few months go poring over every picture in this book (but I didn't buy it! Sorry Strand!) Utterly fascinating. A lot of these faces have traces of tragedy in them, as well as the dehumanization of being arrested. But others show lot of spunk. Pretty cool pix.

 

[Classydame]

Vintage Mug Shots.

I though this was interesting. These mug shots are beautiful but haunting and a little eery. I hope the link works,


http://www.newsweek.com/id/209842?GT1=43002

 

[zetwal]

I myself couldn't open your link. But the thought of 'haunting' mugshots reminded me immediately of this amusing contemporary publication -

http://www.bustedinaustin.com