Musical Accompaniment: I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire by the Ink Spots

 

It’s been a while since we checked in with Arnold Genthe, so I went looking for something new.  I found some pictures that were assembled into an Arnold Genthe calendar for the year 1946, a few years after the photographer’s death. The photos were actually taken decades earlier in San Francisco’s Chinatown, probably in the months or year before the Great Quake of 1906.

I read that, during this time, Genthe had some way of concealing his camera.  I’m curious how he managed to do it but I believe that must be right. These pictures don’t look like he posed the subjects. Well, maybe the shoemaker does.  Let me know what you think!

Mother and child

Aristocrats of Chinatown

The Shoemaker   Does anyone know what he’s holding?

The New Toy

Baskets for sale