Oxen pulling a cart, Castleton – undated, Cramahe Township Public Library, Colborne ON
Toronto. George Dunbar sent me a brief note the other day along with the image shown at left. George noted, “Occasionally, the browsing of a photo-archive will produce an eye-stopper based solely on the very poor condition of the preserved image”.
This undated photo is described only as “Oxen pulling a cart, Castleton,” and certainly captured my attention & imagination.
The image indeed is affected by what looks like a couple of amateur repairs on the back. The glue on the patches migrated to the front of the print giving the two disfiguring rectangles, augmented by finger prints during processing and repair.
But as George mentioned, the image is an eye-stopper. Regardless of the damage, the photograph still conveys a bit of history to us!
Note. The title of this post is a few words from 1966’s ‘spaghetti western’ movie called “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly“. The movie is the third of a trio that launched Clint Eastwood, to movie stardom.
