How to be a Retronaut

If the past is a foreign country, this is your passport

Anachronisms
- Future in the past
  - 50 years of Japanese Concept Cars
  - A story about civil defence
  - Aliens in vintage postcards
  - Atomic-age Hollywood
  - Manga of the 1950s and 1960s
  - Mercedes Benz SSK "Count Trossi"
  - Monsanto "House of the Future"
  - Nuclear toys
  - Spacelander electric bicycle, 1946
  - The Dazzle-Ships of WWI
  - Visions from “Popular Science”
- Future in the present
  - Postcards from the Future
- Past in the present
  - "Cloud of Unknowing" - Gorillaz
  - "Le Costume Historique"
  - "Photo of Britain in the Ice-Age"
  - "The Swing", 1767
  - Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia
  - Biblical scenes in Google Earth
  - Classic photographs in Lego
  - Doom of Obsolete Coastal Fort, 1924
  - Facebook updates for historic events
    - Facebook updates for historic events (Part 1)
    - Facebook updates for historic events (Part 2)
  - iVictrola
  - Man removing shirt, 1450
  - Messerschmidt sculptures, 1700s
  - SatNav c.1930
  - USB Typewriters
  - Vintage typewriter stickers
  - Woman in a chicken suit, 1910
  - WWI cross-dressing
  - WWII paper planes
- Present in the past
  - Anachronistic Internet Ads
  - Apple Mac in Mad Men
  - Contemporary ruins
    - "The Village that Died for England"
    - Abandoned amusement parks
    - Demyanskoe, East Prussia
    - East End shopfronts, 1988
    - Ghost-station Tube maps
    - Secret Moscow Cosmonaut Dept.
    - Ukrainian airfield
  - Contempory Memento Mori
    - Aged Barbie
    - Aged Superheroes
    - And Vinyly
    - Bugs Bunny's skeleton
    - Tweety-pie's skeleton
  - Darth Vader by Monet, 1875
  - Dubai through an 1857 lens
  - Gropec*** Lane
  - Hollywood Premakes
  - iPad in 2024: A Space Odyssey
  - iPods in 1977
  - Italian Police Motorbikes, 1953
  - Ming Dynasty beer-cans
  - Planets and Wormholes
  - Pride & Prejudice & Zombies
  - Retrofuturs
  - Steampunk
    - Steampunk laptop
    - Steampunk Stormtrooper
  - Superheroes in history
  - The Georgian iMax
  - The internet as vintage Penguins
  - Victorian Infographics
  - Victorian Star Wars
  - “Modern Renaissance” & “Celebrity Time-Travel”
- Time-crashes
  - "Its a Marshmallow World"
  - "Ophelia" in Hackney and Lego
  - "The Prisoner", 1967
  - 7+17+70
  - Antique Beat
  - Banksy
  - Christian Dior in the USSR
  - Collodion Iron Man
  - Dali and Disney's "Destino"
  - Flashback
  - Star Wars in the Silent Age
  - The Blickling Hall clock
  - The Bowder Stone
  - The Soviet "Hobbit"
  - Travels in Imaginaria
  - Tudor Pinhole Camera
  - Victorian Delorean
  - We Are All Animals
Change
- Extreme change
  - "Remember" for Mary
  - "The Collapsing Wall", 1940s / 2024
  - 19th Century America
  - Albert Memorial allotments, 1941
  - Construction
    - Construction of Nelson's Column
    - Construction of the Eiffel Tower
    - Construction of the Statue of Liberty
    - Construction of the Tyne Bridge
    - Construction of Tower Bridge
  - Earl's Court Farm, 1867
  - Heathrow Airport, 1935
  - Larry Page's Google Business Card c.1998
  - Method of wrapping carrier pigeons
  - Once upon a time in Afghanistan
  - The Brixton Zebra
- Gradual change
  - "Stour Valley and Dedham Village" (1815/2010), John Constable
  - Anna and Richard Wagner, 1900-1945
  - Chiswick High Road, 1982 / 2024
  - The "Ziggy Stardust" phone-box, 1972-2009
  - Twin Peaks 20 years later
Early technology
- Film
  - "Alice in Wonderland", 1903
  - "Fred Ott's Sneeze", January 1894
  - "The first motion picture"
  - "The Gay Shoe Clerk", August 1903
  - 1888
  - Bloopers
    - Hollywood bloopers c. 1936
  - Colour film
    - "Colour on the Thames", 1935
    - "London in the Raw", 1964
    - "Temples of India", 1938
    - "The Serpentine Dance" c. 1899
    - "The Titfield Thunderbolt", 1953
    - Chicago Billboards, 1942
    - Colour footage of the A1, 1939
    - Deauville, 1912
    - Elvis, 1955
    - Israel, 1940s / 50s
    - Kodak 1922 Kodachrome test film
    - London's VE & VJ Day, 1945
    - London, 1920s
    - Roosevelt, 1941
    - Smalltown America, 1954
    - Soho, 1950s
    - St. John's Wood, 1940s
    - Venice, 1912
  - London streets, 1903
  - Mark Twain, 1909
  - San Francisco Earthquake & Fire
  - San Francisco's Market Street, 1906
- Firsts
  - 15 World's Firsts
  - First Russian Pig in Space
  - The "first colour video"
  - The "first photograph" of New York
  - The first fake photographs
  - The first photograph of a human
- Music video
  - Soundies
    - "A Little Jive is Good for You" - Martha Tilton
    - "A Zoot Suit" - Dorothy Dandridge
    - "Clink, Clink, Another Drink" - Spike Jones and His City Slickers
    - "Cow Cow Boogie" - Ella Mae Morse
    - "Got to be This or That" - June Barton
    - "I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me" - Peggy Mann
    - "In Old Shanty Town" - Johnny Long and his Orchestra
    - "Loch Lomond" - Martha Tilton
    - "Love Turns Winter to Spring" - Martha Tilton
    - "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi"
    - "This Love of Mine" - Cyd Charisse
    - "Your Old Grey Bonnet" - Ozzie Nelson
    - “Juke Box Saturday Night” – Glenn Miller Modernaires
  - The first music video, 1895
- Photography
  - Aerial
    - Aerial panorama of San Francisco in ruins
  - Colour
    - "Bound for Glory": America in Color from 1939-1943
    - A door left open, Monday 25th August 1913
    - Brighton beach, Saturday, June 16th, 1906
    - Christina O'Gorman, 1913
    - Cornwall, August 1913
    - Dorset, England, 1907
    - Dublin, 1961
    - England, 1913
    - England, 1928
    - European mountains, 1909
    - Fleet Street, London, 1:55pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon in 1924
    - Flowers, 1910
    - Imperial Russia, 1909-1915
    - Janet and Iris Laing, 1910
    - London's "Peace Day", 19th July 1919
    - New York City, 1941
    - Objects, 1915
    - Oxford early summer 1924
    - Panoramic Tokyo, 1865
    - Rothschild Autochromes
    - Soho coffee bars, 1959
    - Umrao Singh Sher-Gil
    - WWII WASPs
  - High Resolution
    - Cincinatti, 1848, in hi-res
    - London, 1940s, in hi-res colour
    - London, 1950s, in hi-res colour
    - New York, 1940s, in hi-res colour
  - Snap-shot
    - Girl on a tricycle, Ireland, 1900
    - Jacques Henri Lartigue
  - Stereo
    - 3D Ancient Japan
- Recorded sound
  - "There'll Come A Time" - Arthur Pryor, 1897
  - Recording of Pope Leo XIII, 1903
Immediacy
- Alfred Steiglitz's Clouds
- Bablake School, Coventry, 1955-57, by Alan Hails
- Bus in a crater, 1940
- Carnaby Street, 1968
- Chicago Night Clubs, 1970s
- Children, 1905
- Duke of Windsor, gardening
- High Command, 1944
- Hyde Park, London, May 1944
- John Bulmer's North
- London Blackout, February 1944
- Market Day, Oxford, 1968
- Neptune's Certificate
- Nightingales and bombers
- Paris, 1910-1914, by Eugene Atget
- Photobooth animations
- Portraits, 16th Century, by Holbein
- Portraits, F. Holland Day
- Smiling
  - Smiles of old Japan
  - Smiling Queen Victoria
  - Smiling Victorians
- Soviet Lithuania, 1960s & 1970s
- Square Dance, Oklahoma, 1940
- The "Colinne", 1967
- The Birth of the Ark Royal 1950
- The Jokers, 1959
- USSR, 1953
Multiple time
- Ambiguous time
  - What year is this?
    - What year is this? #1
    - What year is this? #2
    - What year is this? #2: answer
    - What year is this? #3
    - What year is this? #3: answer
    - What year is this? #4
    - What year is this? #4: answer
    - What year is this? #5
    - What year is this? #5: answer
    - What year is this? #6
    - What year is this? #6: answer
    - What year is this? #7
    - What year is this? #7: answer
- Dual photographs
  - Age Maps
  - Looking into the past
  - Stepping into the past
  - The Ghosts of…
    - Amsterdam
    - Cherbourg
    - Leningrad
    - Macclesfield
    - Newcastle
    - the Blitz
    - Toronto
    - World War II
  - The Kodak building
Replicas
- Brand-new 18th century shirts
- Brand-new Batmobiles
- Brand-new Big Trak
- Brand-new medieval castle
- Brand-new medieval humours
- Brand-new Smalltown, USA
- Brand-new Victorian man
- Brand-new WWII
The Retronaut
- Greetings from 1950s Wales
  - Friday
  - Monday
  - Monday #2
  - Saturday
  - Sunday
  - Thursday
  - Tuesday
  - Wednesday
- Retronautic bridegroom
- The Retronaut's daughter
- The Retronaut's holiday snaps
Time-travel culture
- "Photograph of a time-traveler"
- "Present" - Michæl Paukner
- "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells
  - "The Time Machine" Comic
  - "The Time-Machine" in Lego
- "Time-traveler" in 1928 Chaplin Film
- Awkward 80s photos
- Back to the Future iPhone App
- Dr Evermore & the Forevertron
- Echo Park Time-travel Mart
  - 10 Time-travel Mart products
  - 5 Time-travel tourism ads
- Hakan Nordkvist, time-traveler
- Hang this up in your time-machine
- ICANHASTIMETRAVEL
- Mark Wallinger's TARDIS
- Time-machine guitar effect pedal
- Time-travel map
- Tom Swift's Retroscope
Unusual duration
- Contracted time
  - 100 years of Hovis
  - 500 years of women in Western Art
  - Four sisters, 25 years
  - Rush hour, Waterloo Station, 1970
  - Shooting Gallery, 1936-2009
  - The longest time-lapse video
  - Time-lapse from space
  - World's tallest buildings c.1884
- Exceptional survival
  - 5000-year-old chewing gum
  - 90-year-old newspaper house
  - Hatch the Tudor dog
  - Ice-Age flute
  - Lennon and McCartney: the last known photograph
  - London's oldest statue
  - Mozart's skull
  - Notting Hill Gate Tube posters c. 1956-1959
  - Paris flat unopened for 70 years
  - The Cabinet of Sarah Hare
  - The Roman road-map
  - World's oldest living things
- Expanded time
  - 27-year-old picnic
  - Crayola colour chart, 1903-2010
  - One family, 30 years
  - The longest photographic exposure

Carnaby Street, 1968

These photographs Carnaby Street, London were taken by Arby Reed in 1968. The girl looking into the gleaming Roller shows us that this was before Carnaby Street was pedestrianised.

…..

Thank you to Martin Devlin.

6 comments to Carnaby Street, 1968

Pete Knight

February 27, 2024 at 12:51 pm

Was that colourfully decorated brickwork the Beatles’ Apple building?
Nigel Reigate

February 27, 2024 at 2:38 pm

Yes, Pete it is.
southcott

February 27, 2024 at 8:33 pm

Are you sure?

I thought the Apple building was in Baker Street.
Davecat

February 28, 2024 at 9:08 am

Lovely scooters in the last photo!
Dodo

February 28, 2024 at 1:45 pm

Oh, picture #1! I want her shoes. And I demand a return to the insouciant foulard for gentlemen.
Fishislandskin

August 31, 2024 at 10:38 pm

The brightly coloured building is the Lord John Shop on Carnaby street and is definatly not the Beatles Apple Boutique which was located at 94 Baker Street, I worked in Carnaby Street from 1966 to 1967 and also worked in the Apple shop prior to it closing down.