Estonian Photos - Part 15

Estonian Photos

Here's another group of photos from the Tartu Ülikooli museum of anthropology in Estonia.

For those who haven't seen my previous posts in this series, a few words of explanation.  The museum provides no information about the men, other than the photos came from the Institute of Anatomy.  In particular, it does not say who these men are, or when or why the photos were taken.

My best guess is that they are military recruits.  The very short haircuts suggest that these photos were taken during or shortly after the enlistment process.

The dark faces and hands of many of the men suggests that they are either deeply tanned from working outside like farmers, or they are dirty from working in a place like a coal mine. Note the face of the guy on the left (click on the photo for a larger view).  That doesn't look like a tan; his face looks dirty.  Estonia doesn't have any coal mines, but it has oil shale mines, which would make the workers just as dirty.  Or if they're recruits, maybe the Army put them to work on something dirty.

The photos can be downloaded from the museum website in small or large format.  Most of these are the small photos.  The large photos are enormous; it takes about two minutes to download a single photo.  I have downloaded only a few of them in large format, including the three photos of #582 and #583.  Click on them to see the larger images.  The original photos were too large to post (over 460 MB each!)  I reduced their size to show them here, and they're still huge.

When were the photos taken?  My assumption has been between World War I and World War II, when Estonia was an independent country with its own military.  Before WWI, Estonia was part of the Russian Empire, and after WWII, Estonia was part of the Soviet Union until 1991.

Another clue is that these photographs were made on glass plates, not film.  Dry glass-plate photography started in 1871 and began to fall out of use in the 1920s.  I found some references to it in Estonia through the 1930s.

Although these appear to be military recruits, these may not not be military photos.  We know that the museum that currently has the photos got them from the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Tartu.  If these are military photos, why would they end up at the Institute of Anatomy?

 A more likely possibility is that the photos were taken by academics.  Scientists at the Institute of Anatomy were doing studies to try to measure what they considered racial characteristics of the population by measuring the body, including phrenology (measuring the skull), ideas which are now discredited.

I think that the scientists at the Institute of Anatomy may have persuaded the military to let them take photographs of the naked new recruits for "research" purposes.  I have no written evidence to support this idea, but since the photos were at the Institute of Anatomy, and the photo subjects appear to be military recruits, it's now my best guess as to what happened.

One other clue to the time frame of these photos is that in a previous batch, one of the men is wearing a wristwatch.   Wristwatches were considered to be for ladies before World War I.  (Men used pocket watches.)  However, during the war, wristwatches proved very useful for soldiers and pilots.  After WWI, wristwatches came into fashion for men. 

Although they were evidently rare in Estonia (only two men wore a wristwatch among the hundreds that were photographed), it suggests that these photos are post-World War I.

One other question that perennially arises from these photos is: why were the men photographed in pairs?  Was it to save film?

The answer is that these photos were made on glass plates, which were more expensive than film, so yes, it's likely that the men were photographed in pairs to save on glass plates.

So, bottom line: My best guess is that these photos were taken after World War I, the subjects are new or recent Army recruits, and the Estonian military allowed scientists from the Institute of Anatomy to take photos of the naked recruits for "research".

Boys and their Balls - Part 49

Baseball Cards

Here's another in my series of real and fake baseball cards.  I've taken the real cards and, with a bit of Photoshop legerdemain, I've substituted a different real photo of the player.  It's just not the type that you'd normally see on a baseball card.

A real card.  Bob Allison (above) was a rookie for the Washington Senators in 1959.

My fake card, using a real photo of Allison in 1959 with Hal Griggs and Harmon Killebrew off to the right.  (I confess I colorized the image.)   And what's that peeking out of Allison's shirt down there?

Hanley Ramirez played for the Miami Marlins in 2010.

My fake card shows a 2010 photo of him, discreet compared to some other players you'll see later.

Jose Bautista played for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2012.

And the ESPN Body Issue featured him that year.

Jose Reyes played for the Mets in 2011.

And he made the 2011 ESPN Body Issue.

In 2014, Prince Fielder was with the Texas Rangers.

And he was in the ESPN Body Issue that year.

Delino Deshields played for the Cleveland Indians.

And he took this selfie.

Matt Festa was a pitcher for the Seattle Mariners.

But he's pitching something else in this selfie.

We end with Aroldis Chapman, relief pitcher for the New York Yankees.  His pitches were very high velocity, known in baseball as "heat."

And here he is working up some heat.  You can't see all of his face, but that's him – positively identified by his tattoos.

I never collected baseball cards as a kid, but I would have if they looked like this.

Weighing In - Part 51

 Billy Joe Saunders

Billy Joe Saunders, born in 1989, is a British middleweight and super-middleweight boxer.  Above, he weighs in for a fight against Matthew Hall in 2013 to defend the British & Commonwealth middleweight title.  Saunders won.  Apparently a modesty towel was not needed at the weigh-in, though he does cover up with his hands.

Above, he weights in for a fight in 2014.  An official takes off his jacket and holds it up as a screen, but he does so well after Saunders strips, and in any case, the photographer is off to the side.

Here he strips to weigh in for a 2017 fight against David Lemieux defending his WBO World Middleweight title.  Again, he covers up with his hands, but there's a brief instant ...

and thanks to the magic of digital phototography, here's the view of that instant.  By the way, Saunders won the fight.

Saunders is noted for bad behavior.  In 2018, he pulled over another car on the highway and, impersonating a cop (though he wasn't dressed as one and wasn't driving a police car), tells the driver to pull down his trousers, then remove his shirt, and then pull down his underpants (called pants in Britain) on the pretext that the man may have a concealed weapon, while he or a friend takes a video of the whole thing.  When he finally tells the man to turn around and bend over, the man refuses, and Saunders laughs and drives away, treating the whole thing as a big joke and posting the video on social media.  Above is a clip from that video.

Another video surfaced of Saunders in his car offering to sell £150 of crack cocaine to a female drug addict if she will punch a passer-by in the face.  She does, and Saunders then laughs and drives off.  Another big joke.

The British Boxing Board of Control did not see the humor in either of these incidents.  They found Saunders guilty of "bringing the sport into disrepute" and fined him £100,000.

Poem of the Day - Part 50

Ozymandias

Ozymandias is the best known poem by English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818.  I have made one slight change to the wording (the name), but I think it fits, since this poem is all about colossal ego.

                                        I met a traveller from an antique land,

                                        Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

                                        Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

                                        Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

                                        And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

                                        Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

                                        Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

                                        The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

                                        And on the pedestal, these words appear:

                                        My name is Ozymandias Donald Trumpias, King of Kings;

                                        Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

                                        Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

                                        Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

                                        The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Photographers - Part 51

J. Wayne Higgs

J. Wayne Higgs (1939-2023) was a photographer and graphic artist in the Washington, DC area.  Born John Wayne Higgs, he dropped "John" and went by Wayne Higgs.

He is remarkable for the number of nude self-portrait photos that he made during a long life.  His book "naked i" contains a selection of them.  Literally hundreds of them can be seen on his Flickr page.  All of today's photos except the last one are his self-portraits.

Above, Nude male, self-portrait, taken in 1965 in Washington DC.

Self-portrait, 1966 shows that he was well-hung.

And Self-portrait, 1967 shows even more.

Squatting self-portrait, 1967, shows a good-looking young man.

Here he is in 1974.  He was taking nude photos of a female subject, and she wanted to take one of him.

Toot, a self-portrait was taken in 1976 in Washington DC.

The Interview ... a self-portrait melodrama dates from 1978.

Is it cocked? was used in a set of notecards with male nude photos that he published in 1980-1981 to be sold in gay boutique shops nationwide.  It was not explicitly identified as a self-portrait, but I'm almost certain that it is.

Self-portrait in the yard, 1987.

Art reference self-portrait, 1988.

Art reference self-portrait, 1988.

After a gap of some years, we see Those Who Wait, a self-portrait with some obvious photo-manipulation, taken in 2009 on Assateague Island, Maryland.

This 2010 self-portrait was untitled.  In 2010 he was 70 years old, but still very unashamed.

74th birthday suit self-portrait was taken on Nov. 14, 2013.

This is Fourth of July selfie, taken in 2020.

Our last photo of him is 82nd birthday self-portrait, taken on Nov. 14, 2021.

We end with this photo, not a self-portrait.  It's Higgs' photo of another man's cock.  As a professional photographer, he photographed all sorts of things, but his Flickr site is full of nude photo sessions, some of women, but mostly of men.  Was he straight?  His obituary said that he got married when he was 21 years old, and he and his wife had six children.

However, consider this.  When he posted the photo above on his Flickr page, someone commented "mmm".

J. Wayne Higgs replied, "That's what I always say every time he slides that big bare uncut head into my tight little hole."