1950s
AA-2026-215F43
On the image
Lederhosen had largely disappeared from everyday Alpine life by the time the postwar tourist industry began sending Americans and northern Europeans into the mountains in search of authentic local color — which is perhaps why, in the 1950s, the souvenir shops were happy to provide it. The man at this overlook has committed fully to the regional dress code: plaid knee-length shorts, white knee socks, the whole arrangement, then raised a camera to photograph a broad agricultural valley stretched out a thousand feet below.
The valley itself — checkerboard fields bisected by a braided river, ridge lines receding into haze — is the kind of view that inspired the word 'panoramic.' He is photographing it anyway, on equipment that will render it as a two-inch rectangle on a color slide, to be shown once at a dinner party and never again located.
This is the central ritual of postwar leisure travel: the obligatory record shot taken from the obligatory viewpoint, producing evidence that the mountain was there and so were you. The view will survive; the slides will not.
Visually related — by likeness
Tourist Photographs Alpine Valley from Summit Overlook, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-215F43. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/tourist-photographs-alpine-valley-from-summit-overlook-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026215F43,
title = {Tourist Photographs Alpine Valley from Summit Overlook, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-215F43},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/tourist-photographs-alpine-valley-from-summit-overlook-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Tourist Photographs Alpine Valley from Summit Overlook, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-215F43 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/tourist-photographs-alpine-valley-from-summit-overlook-1950s ER -
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