|
Street scenes, still lifes, and other cool Xmas card ideas from Larry Racioppo
Inside Street Photography |
The official newsletter of Street Photography Magazine |
|
|
| Friday, 29 Nov 2024 | Reading time: 6 mins | Read online
|
|
|
|
When I think about Christmas cards, I remember my extended Italian-American family in South Brooklyn. Even though we lived within a few blocks of each other, sending and receiving cards was a Holiday tradition. Only adults sent them, not kids. My cousins and I often had to sell Christmas cards to raise money for our Catholic grammar schools. But on our own we ordered greeting cards through ads found in the back of our comic books and sold preordered cards to our relatives and neighbors. We were not paid in money but in toys or sporting goods we ordered from the company’s catalog. Man, did we ever look forward to getting our ‘rewards’ in the mail! One year my cousin Joe and I pooled our rewards and redeemed them for a portable Coleman propane stove for summer camping.
|
|
I went online recently to confirm my memories of selling cards. I found a goldmine of personal reminiscences and reproductions of vintage ads. Some looked just like the ones my cousin and I answered. Journalist Chris Otto has a fascinating site, with reproductions like these
|
|
I did not start sending Christmas cards until I had my own apartment in 1972, and began making my own cards a few years later. At first, I made small black and white prints on 5×7 inch paper, leaving a little room at the top to write Merry Xmas.
|
|
I put a stamp and address on the back, and mailed them as oversize postcards. Later on I began using photo papers specifically made for creating your own postcards. The back of the print had a rectangle for a stamp and lines for writing an address.
|
|
In addition to printing papers for postcards, there are now papers for artist cards that include matching envelopes.
|
|
I always had ‘Christmas-y’ junk around – old Santa decorations, Santa faces, Santa saltshakers. I stuck them on the wall or set up a small table to photograph them as still lifes. I made small color prints and glued them to folded paper. Getting a smooth fold was the hardest part.
|
|
I also photographed Christmas street scenes and apartment tableaux, first in my own neighborhood, and later on throughout New York City. Sometimes I was just lucky. One afternoon in Coney Island I opened my car door and almost stepped on a small cloth Santa lying on a clump of grass next to a crushed cigarette.
|
|
In the mid-70’s, the Brooklyn Museum had a show of artist-made Christmas cards in the small Corner Gallery outside the first floor cafeteria. I submitted a partially hand-colored photo and was excited to be included.
|
|
These days I prefer to create still lifes for my Christmas cards. I have a really nice studio with good light and equipment. The Christmas cards I make for my interior designer wife Barbara Cannizzaro must be simple and beautiful. Working with her has made me a better photographer.
|
 |
| Barbara's Christmas tableaux, 2002 |
 |
| And a recent one of mine. |
|
It is almost time to make my 2024 cards but I do not have my usual enthusiasm this year. Many of the people I regularly exchanged cards with are no longer alive. I have the addresses of my mother and her sisters, my most reliable Christmas card customers, who are long gone in a red cloth phone book. I think of their kindness and generosity to me as I look forward to receiving the homemade cards of my grandchildren.
|
|
P.S. I will send a return card to any reader who sends me one of their own
Christmas cards. My mailing address:
|
 |
| Larry’s portrait by Anna Delaney |
|
When I returned to South Brooklyn in 1970 after two years in California as a VISTA Volunteer, I was 22 years old with no plans and a $30 camera I barely knew how to use. I took a course at the School of Visual Arts, a job with the telephone company and began to photograph my family and friends. Things worked out better than I could have expected. I’ve been making photographs for over 50 years, and have some things I’d like to share.
|
|
Readers can respond directly to me – larryracioppo@gmail.com.
|
|
