Thread: Playboy Admiral
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Old 10-10-2008, 10:30 AM
Pete Deksnis's Avatar
Pete Deksnis Pete Deksnis is offline
15GP22 demo @ ETF 2007
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Big Rapids, MI
Posts: 762
This IS a fun photograph. My take on it:

The shot was made with natural lighting. Look at that as yet (at this writing) unidentified stereo console. Notice that it and that whole back area of the room is NOT in focus; it's because the lens is way open, which of course causes a narrow depth of field because (again) the shot was taken with little and probably no artificial lighting, just what's coming in those huge windows. The operating set and the 'talent' are all that's in focus.

Furthermore, that operating set is facing away from the windows so it receives as little of the available light as possible and allows the film to register the video image with acceptable contrast. It all fits: taken not in a showroom, actual TV image on the screen, and an available light photo -- look at all those reflections in the polished cabinet tops -- nobody is going to air brush them in.

Eagle-eye (also known as Doug) spotted the open-cabinet, which makes it a prop for sure. This is certainly a stylist's set and not a showroom. I visited the Zenith showroom in Chicago in January 1964 and it looked like a showroom, nothing like this room. What this may well be is an area in a building that was rented or otherwise made available just to take this shot, which will perhaps make it all the more difficult to identify from the window view. In the mid-seventies, GQ magazine did this in NYC to illustrate its hi-fi articles. They made a big production of it, shipping gobs of stereo equipment to an up-scale apartment just for an article illustration.

As for the 'hottie' [known as 'talent' today but 'the broad' back then (a term of endearment mostly, not so much the negative connotation it may project today, just listen to Sinatra songs of that time)], check those feminine hands with the manicured nails and pink polish. Today they'd be fake and/or painted black.

Pete
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