Monday, February 27, 2012

Photo Quiz




Today's quiz. Who are these two cute little guys?

Sorry about the quality of this image, but that may by itself be a bit of a clue to its vintage. If nobody gets the answer right within a day or so. I will start posting clues.

Update Tues 28 Feb: As suspected this is a tough quiz without more information. So here are some hints...

1. This is a LASER sailing blog. These two kids became well known as Laser sailors, but one of them is more active today in another class.

2. They are NOT brothers.

3. They both have sailing blogs and both have been mentioned before on this blog.


28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Baydog and Mojo

Jsailor said...

David and Charles Koch

FredK said...

George and Jeb Bush

Tillerman said...

Sorry. None of the above. Koch? Bush? Who are they? Are they sailors? This IS a sailing blog. (That's a clue.)

O Docker said...

These two?

Tillerman said...

Wow. Good guess O Docker. There is certainly some resemblance in the faces between the pictures of the Mosbacher brothers and the two little kids. But it's not them.

One way you might have worked out that this answer was wrong is that the Mosbachers were about 5 years apart in age, and the two kids are obviously closer in age than that.

As you are (were?) a professional photographer, O Docker, was there anything about the photo that gave you a clue to the era in which it was taken? The Mosbachers were born in the 1920's. Does it look like a photo from that age to you?

O Docker said...

Didn't see any obvious clues here.

Styles of studio lighting have changed over time, so the look of a professionally done portrait will often give away the period, and a color reproduction of a black and white print can be revealing. Very old black and white - before the thirties - was usually done on orthochromatic film, which gives a slightly different look that's often hard to distinguish from panchromatic. But none of these seems to apply here.

I usually just look for details of clothing or background, but there's little of that to go on here. That SI article has a photo of the Mosbachers in their early teens, where their faces still look like the kids in your picture a little.

O Docker said...

And Blogger is up to their new tricks again.

Looks like they've done away with the gizmo that let you follow comments threads by e-mail.

Tillerman said...

You are sort of on the right track with the Mosbachers. Like them, both of these young men did grew up to be accomplished sailors, among the best in their generation. But they were born several decades after the Mosbachers.

Baydog said...

Harry and Hans Melges?

Clay Johnson said...

Where did you get that picture? I know who they are...

Tillerman said...

Baydog - wrong!

Clay - The picture was sent to me by a blogging friend but it's actually out there on the Internet. I will send you a message with the URL. Please don't spoil the fun. Let others have a few guesses before we reveal the answer.

Joe said...

How about these two? (result from a Google reverse image search...I think they need to tweak the program a tad bit)

Tillerman said...

Joe - those are two handsome fellows but who are they?

Joe said...

Since we've gone down a German path with the Kochs, Mosbachers, and Megles brothers, let's continue. König und Kainz in vertrauter Pose.

Tillerman said...

Thanks for that cultural diversion Joe, but these two fellows are sailors. And they are not German.

trevor koerwer said...

My guess was also the Melges brothers

Tillerman said...

OK, here are some clues.

Everyone seems to be thinking about brothers. These two kids are NOT brothers. They were born only a few months apart. They obviously knew each other from a very young age and they both grew up to be very good sailors. Most of my readers will know their names.

Joe said...

Phew, that was close. I put down two brothers, then read your comment. Exit stage left, deleted!

Baydog said...

Dick Wight and Mike Heinrich?

Litoralis said...

Paul Goodison and Ben Ainslie?

Tillerman said...

No Lito. Not Paul and Ben.

Litoralis said...

Clay Johnson and Andrew Campbell?

Tillerman said...

Lito has it! It is indeed Clay Johnson and Andrew Campbell.

I'll write a separate post on where this photo came from and how these two knew each other at such an early age.

Litoralis said...

Presumably this photo was taken in Toms River?

CampbellSailing said...

What a riot! A lot of Laser sailing, and a lot of good hours on the water in the 25 years since that photo.

Tillerman said...

Actually the photo wasn't taken in Toms RIver. Apparently it was taken in the Bahamas, but both families did live in Toms River back then.

Thanks to Clay and Andrew for stopping by and leaving comments and being good sports about my using this photo.

bowsprite said...

ok. So NOT the Smothers Brothers.
What a whirl through history…!

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