For a guy who made a living shooting photos that told stories, sometimes I have to admit that I don’t KNOW the story in some pictures.
This was a single frame that was on a roll of Harris Motor Car fire photos from sometime around 1965ish. It must have been taken at some kind of party: I see crepe paper decorations in the background and the players are dressed up.(Click on the photos to make them larger.)
The couple on the couch doing some deep eye-gazing are oblivious to me and the other people in the room, including the person whose legs are sprawled out next to them. The kind of dorky-looking guy (and as one, I can identify one) appears to be frozen in front of a closet or divider door. I started to crop out the overexposed woman (girl?) on the right as distracting, but then decided she was part of the strange tableau.
When I blew the negative up enough to snoop the bookshelf behind the couple, I spotted a Better Homes and Garden New Garden Book, some Reader’s Digest condensed books, some Reader’s Digest magazines and several novels, including Back Home, The Way West, The Fires of Autumn and Chips Off the Old Benchley. There are two boxes with latches on the shelf. One of them has a label “Annette (?) Platter Pak.” I wonder if they might have held 45 RPM records.
Here’s your assignment
Come up with a story that explains the elements in the photo. I’m not sure if I’ll add or subtract bonus points if you can actually identify the characters and the location.
It’s almost more fun if you come up with a Rod Serling Twilight Zone twist about space aliens who launch a powerful pulse of energy that freezes all human movement so the space folk can wander around doing things like reading our bookshelves without being detected.
Now that I think of it, I ran photos of another party that generated more questions than answers. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get invited to many parties.