What I like about these plates is their anonymity. You have no way of knowing the sitters stories and thats what makes them so intriguing to me.
Here we have two friends or brothers, the one sitting has lost his right arm, how this has happened? I’ve no idea.
I think my main interest in this era of imagery is that at my family home we have a big old biscuit tin of family photos. No tinypes/ambrotypes but plenty of CDVs. Now I can remember my grandparents but have no recollection of my great grandparents. These images show a family tie that I have no personal experience of yet feel a connection to. I can appreciate they are or were part of my family but I know nothing about them. My mother is into genealogy so I’ll ask her next time I’m down if she could put some face to names etc. I’ll also take a look through the tin of photos to see if theres anything of interest to post here.