Through The Years

A couple of months ago I'd started exploring the "look" of recent decades in an effort to find ways to enhance period aesthetics in my game designs.

Imagine my surprise when the following story fell into my lap:

Texas Teacher Dale Irby Wears Same Outfit For 40 Years In Dallas
Huffington Post, 3 July 2013

A fun-loving teacher has become an internet sensation after school photos of him wearing the same tank top and shirt for 40 years went viral.

Dale Irby, 63, accidentally wore the same brown v-necked tank top and big-collared disco shirt in two consecutive school photos from 1973. When he realised what he had done, the embarrassed teacher's wife Cathy dared him to repeat it for a third year.The PE teacher managed to keep up the joke and for the past 40 years staff and pupils have eagerly awaited Mr Irby's arrival at school for the annual photo.

The story originated in the Dallas Morning News and spread virally through news outlets worldwide. (Indeed, the fast spread of the images became a news item in itself.)

It offers a unique opportunity to examine images taken in an identical context over a spread of four decades, which can be used to verify (or challenge) the period characteristics identified in my earlier posts.  To start this process I re-arranged the original photos grouped by decade:

Let's start by looking at some 1970s images in more detail:

My "1970s Look" article postulated the following period details:

• Faded colour, with lots of brown & beige
• Sunshine and lens flares
• Patterned wallpaper

These photos clearly exhibit fading (low-contrast too) and lots of brown.  Obviously Irby's joke requires him to continue with the camel tank-top in later years, but it was certainly in fashion at the time of the first photo.  (Similarly, the fashion for thinner rims on glasses is noticeable toward the end of the decade.)

The photos were taken indoors, so no chance for sunshine.  No wallpaper either, but the backgrounds for earlier photos appear to be school murals; 1980s onward use mottled muslin back cloths.  A quick bit of research tells me that muslin use goes back to the early days of photography & cinema, but I don't personally recall seeing many school photos which used it until the 1980s.  This could be useful for extra period decoration, if including portrait photos in a room -- the painted backgrounds definitely look more old-fashioned.

Next we'll examine some of the 1980s photos:

My "1980s Look" post postulated:

• Lots of black / night-time, with under-saturated (but not quite faded) primary colours.
• Stripes
• Glow

These are certainly darker, and the colours are certainly stronger without being vivid.  Stripes & glow are not a style option here, but the images (and light reflections) are definitely sharper.

By the 1990s we're seeing more saturated colour (certainly for the background, which is also lighter) and a fashion change in the glasses which have shrunk a little.

Finally, the 2000s brings another increase in sharpness of images (notice the resolution of the shirt pattern) and even more vivid & crisp colour.  Another noticeable change is more balanced lighting, including some accenting.

Well, Mr Irby -- thank you very much for a small joke that, 40 years later, became a minor worldwide news story.  It has proven useful in many more ways that you could have ever anticipated, and has assisted in the process of applying nostalgia within video game design...