The Man with Unfortunate Pants

This rear of this photograph is marked only with "1974," and "Thelma Blumberg," the photographer's name.  Not much is known about Ms. Blumberg except that she photographed in the Gaslight District of St. Louis in the 1960s and 1970s.  A Google search turns up a copy of  Life Magazine, in which she once had a photo published.  Even less is known about the man in this portrait, who probably was quite fashionable for the time.  Before you chuckle too heartily, take a look down at the pants that you're wearing today:  this could be you in 35 years.
 

[click image to enlarge]

You May Now Shake the Bride's Hand

They're probably not even married. She has a ring on her  finger, but that doesn't mean she's married to him.  This portrait of an unknown couple was made by Schneider, a photographer in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Both subjects of this lost portrait are fancily dressed and stiffly posed against a painted backdrop. To the man's right there is an ornate frame that contains a display of other portrait photographs. Could Schneider have been working at a social event, making obligatory souvenir pictures, like they do at every tourist attraction here in Chicago? That might explain the icy handshake, the disparate gazes in opposite directions, and their apparent mutual disinterest in even being there at all.