Postcards: The Gallery - Margeorie Mekie

[Bob Jefferson]

Margeorie Mekie collects and trades postcards and has a particular interest in Portobello. I'm delighted to announce that she has very kindly agreed to allow me to make these available on Portobello Online so that we can all share her enjoyment of this treasure trove of a collection. It's a wonderful gesture that will be appreciated by many.

If you have enjoyed the postcard gallery so far, then boy are you in for a treat!

You may be interested to know that Margeorie has produced a very interesting book of postcards of Portobello, entitled:

[Bob Jefferson]

[Bob Jefferson]

Although Margeorie has over 1000 postcards in her collection (and still collecting!) there are only very minor differences in many and for this reason we will probably not use all of them. The trickery employed by these photo manipulators back at the beginning of the early 20th Century puts today's Photoshoppers to shame.

To illustrate this, let's have a little game of 'spot the difference'. I think this is just two photographs taken a minute or so apart.

[Bob Jefferson]

However, there is clearly some trickery involved here. Not only has the caption changed, but that chimney seems to have disappeared.

[Bob Jefferson]

There are lots of examples. Sometimes the change can be very minor. Small details are added or removed. In other cases, the alteration is much more dramatic, no more so than in this example.