A Cold War Tourist and His Camera: A photographic tour of hot spots in Europe, America, Canada, and Africa during the height of the Cold War.
by Martha Langford and John Langford
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San Diego, California 1963 His first photographic choices can be seen as emulative; some of these are plainly staged, and quite playfully, as repositories of camaraderie and special moments. The silliness of this double portrait, made in San Diego, strikes us now as it would have struck viewers then – as an amusing image of incongruity. Placing the slides in numerical order confirms that the portrait of our father was taken first, using his camera. Was he in fact waiting by the pool for transport, sunbathing in his brown suit, when a colleague happened along and saw how funny he looked?

San Diego, California 1963

His first photographic choices can be seen as emulative; some of these are plainly staged, and quite playfully, as repositories of camaraderie and special moments. The silliness of this double portrait, made in San Diego, strikes us now as it would have struck viewers then – as an amusing image of incongruity. Placing the slides in numerical order confirms that the portrait of our father was taken first, using his camera. Was he in fact waiting by the pool for transport, sunbathing in his brown suit, when a colleague happened along and saw how funny he looked?

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