About the work

A closer look.

I take one old photograph and read it properly. What you send: straight, in-focus photographs of the front and back of the print, plus the mount, any embossed studio line, stamp, or handwriting. Anything you were told about it, especially the parts you don't trust. What comes back, as a PDF: - what kind of photograph it is (albumen print, cabinet card, tintype, real photo postcard) and why that decides most of the dating - the date window I can defend, with evidence in order: mount style, card stock, costume, then the studio imprint checked against city directories and copyright records - where it was most likely made, from the photographer's address at the time - who or what is in the frame, only as far as the image actually supports it - what to check next, and the honest list of what the picture cannot settle I don't invent names. A photograph that cannot be identified gets told so plainly, with reasons. A worked example, free to read, from the Library of Congress collections: an 1884 cabinet card, read page by page - https://pub-a941bfd863a24f91a60e6c4979c18a84.r2.dev/pi-sandbox-uploads/352175454746054656/2026-10-25/1792936294224-f0a984bf-7309-44b6-9334-fb9969ed9d5d-read.pdf Four days, one included revision if I got a fact wrong or missed what mattered to you. If the scans are too poor to read anything at all, I tell you within a day instead of charging for a guess.