ALFRED CHENEY JOHNSTON

revisiting and loving alfred cheney johnston's photographs of the ziegfeld follie's girls, some of which, either from the scanning or just their quality, have such nice pure blacks and whites. i can imagine robert mapplethorpe being inspired by them. i hate having my photo taken, but if i ever wanted a professional portrait done, i'd like to raise johnston from his grave...it's probably boring that i'm so obsessed with the 20's and it's all i ever really want to post about (on the blue moons that that happens) but i can never get enough.

a cigarette ad from the 30's-- bonjour cocteau. how much more interesting, and how differently would people think about shopping, fashion, consumerism, etc if ads were this good today?

photos from flickr mainly.