Saturday Snapshots {October 3, 2009}

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving” ~ Albert Einstein

{There is beauty in every element of this photo, from the copper tinged early November sunlight to the sense of happiness radiating from these ladies’ smiles as they stand aboard the “SS Roma”, in New York Harbour circa 1953. I wonder, were headed to, or returning from, Italy? Traveling or moving countries?}



{The tense anticipation amongst these young chaps as to who holds what in his respective hand was fantastically captured in this overhead shot, about which no information is provided. Leaving us in as much suspense as the card players it features are in a state of.}



{A woman and a young boy stand, two lone figures, on a railway platform banked by snow in this photo from 1958. Were they counting down the seconds until an arrival or gathering the inner strength to walk away after saying good-bye? The billowing plumes of what looks like steam exhaust leads one to think we are viewing the pair just moments after a train clanked away down the tracks.}



{Four young people – friends, siblings, coworkers? – stroll leisurely down the Ocean City Boardwalk in this well preserved colour photo from 1949. Look closely at the first gal and the one on the far right, don’t you just love their saddle shoes?}



{Two women – who our eyes tell us were elderly – strike a pose that leaves on thinking they’re more like best schoolmates than grandmothers, in this vintage photo for which no background information was provided. I like to think that they were either very close sisters or, indeed, lifelong friends of the highest degree.}



{A family identified as the Gosselins (if you go to the Flickr page where this image is posted, each member is listed by name) pose inside a photographer’s studio, perhaps sporting their Sunday finest, in this wonderfully clear shot from 1946.}



{A woman, her eyebrow playful raised a tad, rests her arm out the window of a bus in this close-up colour shot from “between 1949 and 1954”. As to where our lovely red lipped female traveler was headed is anyone’s guess. I like to think she’s just left the small town family farm for life someplace glamorous like LA or New York, her head bursting with big dreams and grand excitement.}



{His snappy white shoes, her interesting toe ring style sandals, their casual summer duds and inviting smiles, the fact that they’re perched while fully clothed on a diving board, what’s not to love about this great 1950s photo?}



{It’s almost as though you can hear the mother’s words to her adorably round cheeked little child as she points towards the lens in this candid photo from 1961, “Look, sweet heart, there’s daddy, come on, smile for daddy! That’s a good girl”.}



{I could not resist capping off today’s series of shots with one that tied into the wise words that began this post. Here an effervescently charming young girl leads a group of cyclists to as they journey to an unknown destination, in a photo from 1938 that was captured in Alessandria, Piemonte.}

{All images above are from Flickr. To learn more about a specific image, please click on it to be taken to its respective Flickr page.}


There are few Einstein quotes I’ve read that did not instantly speak to me on a personal level. Like many of us, I continually feel as though life hinges greatly on the balance that we are able to carve out for ourselves. Some days it is as though we’re juggling plates, others that everything is working in such harmonious order you’re all but afraid to move, lest the balance shift against you. I often find though, that the harder I concentrate on creating balance, the more it eludes me – yet I still try, we all do, and there isn’t a thing wrong with that. Just keep moving, as the wise man said, and somehow everything will remain in a state of equilibrium.