A cute long haired boy poses for his portrait at the studio of J. Heberger, in Rochester, New York. The boy is wearing his sunday finest. He is wearing a striped blouse with a big bow. The blouse is almost screaming “notice me”! In addition, he is wearing short pants and high black shoes and stockings. The photographer did a poor job of posing the young boy. The child is standing beside a wicker chair, and due to poor staging, there is an illusion that part of the chair is protruding from the top of the child’s head. The photographer’s lack of experience, or carelessness, significantly detracts from the quality of this portrait. This photograph is not apparently, an adequate reflection of the skills of the photographer. John Heberger is cited in a number of photography journals of his time for his skills and innovations. One article, from 1909, describes his development of a new process for putting pictures on fabrics. Another article appearing in The Photographic Journal of America (1919) describes an exhibit presented by Heberger. He displayed a number of photographs of subjects with obvious physical deformities. He then demonstrated how using modeling and etching techniques, he was able change the subjects appearance, in the photograph, to show them without their defects. One of his examples was a man with a goiter whose eyes appeared to “pop out of his head”. After Heberger applied his photographic magic, the man’s eyes looked perfectly normal on the resulting photograph.
THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 