Old bizarre photos publication is always a special thing for an Oldpics editor. It’s not that easy to select and categorize properly noteworthy pictures. How should you arrange for them? By photographer’s name, subject, time frame, location, and so on. But sometimes unexpected help comes! Like Rob Moorees, who archived the notable and bizarre photos for decades. His selection criteria seem to be ‘the stranger, the better.’
His bizarre photos selection features both a photo of Hitler in Tyrolean shorts, a dinner for soldiers with crippled faces, and a married American nine-year-old girl with her twenty-two-year-old guy.
Most of these bizarre photos are documentary, but they grab the attention of the casual viewer.
Unforgettable archive photos
Rob Moorees describes the origin of his collection as follows. He was called to digitize the large Dutch archive “Spaarnestad” located on the outskirts of Amsterdam. As he was finding more and more amazing and bizarre photos in the archive, Rob as permission to separate them from the rest. As a result, the researcher saved up an impressive amount of unusual photos on his laptop and began to publish them on the Internet and specialized magazines.
Rob even organized few exhibitions and printed a photo album titled “Life is a strange thing.” Moorees emphasizes that he deliberately did not categorize his bizarre photos according to any criteria. He wants each of the photographs in his archive to be not just part of a series or a thematic collection, but to have an inherent personality and self-worth in the photo. This effect is enhanced because most of the photographs in the archive belong to unknown photographers. Muris compares this situation with the works of the great artists of the past. We don’t remember anything about them but their paintings, their masterpieces, their vision of the world…
A circus performer in an aquarium car with crocodiles, Berlin, 1933
An iron man of the past in a diving suit. The suit’s name was ‘Iron man’ too. It had an electric charging and pressure protection systems. New York, 1907
Charles Godefroy flies through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The height of the opening is 29.42 m, the width is 14.62 m. The wingspan of the aircraft is 9 meters wide, 1919
A visitor with a candle in her hand smiles at the large collection of skulls in the catacombs of Paris. 1935
A crowd watching a British airship fly over the port of Ostend during WWI, 1914
Actor Johnny Ick, who was born with an underdeveloped lower torso, poses for a promotional photo for the famous movie ‘Freaks,’ 1932
Blind WWI Veteran’s marriage, 1921
Women learn to shoot in prison on Roosevelt Island, New York, 1932
Welsh spiritualist Colin Evans feigns levitation by jumping up and down in total darkness and filming himself with an infrared camera. London, 1939
Untitled
Tower of Babel from the Old Testament. A. Frankl, 1927
Unknown author
Boren city citizens await the appearance of the Virgin Mary at the viaduct, not far from the Christian school, where children allegedly observed her the day before. Belgium, 1933
The telepath tries to hypnotize the chimpanzee, 1941
The tactical trick of soldiers during the Mexican Revolution, 1913
The house at the training ground where the US Army conducted experiments on the use of nuclear weapons. Mannequins, 1954 play the role of humans
Soviet cryptographer Igor Guzenko, 1945. In this photo, he hid his face for an interview with Soul Pett from the Associated Press. Guzenko worked at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa and fled to the West in 1945. He brought more than a hundred classified documents and information from the Soviet spy network in Canada; 29 spies were arrested and convicted afterwards. Guzenko received an impressive reward, a mansion, and political asylum.
Soldiers of the British Royal Horse Artillery on pack horses. The animals turned out to be so obedient that they allowed the soldiers to perform tricks like these, 1915
Robert Kennedy and West Berlin Mayor Willie Brandt look through the Berlin Wall, February 22, 1962
Photographer unknown
Newborn mutant rabbit with one head, endowed with two bodies. 1941
Military training at Eton. Since then, the uniform of the students of the elite educational institution has changed little; only the top hats were canceled, 1915
KKK’s members drive around Miami in robes and, with a noose, convince African Americans to abstain from voting in elections. Miami, 1939
Marcia Pinkenfield, six months old, who won a very unusual competition and was chosen as the most beautiful child in America, 1927
A real Malibu Lifeguard. Richard Tide sleeps a girl who was washed into the ocean by a wave
Italian traveler Attilio Gatti with two hired pygmies and a gorilla caught by them in the Belgian Congo, 1930
Exercises at the Sint Willibrordus mental hospital. Netherlands, Henk Blansjaar, 14 February 1956
Girl and orangutan. Indonesia, J.A. Dinkel, early 20th century
Funeral of legendary cyclist Fausto Coppi, who contracted malaria during an African safari. The 1960 year
Bizarre photos of a French soldier during WWI in a suit (breastplate and helmet), 1915 year
An accident on track during a 6-day bike race at the Madison Square Cycle Track. New York, 1913
Faces of war. A banquet for French soldiers who received grievous injuries during WWI, Henri Manuel, Paris, 1925.
The expiration date has passed. Billy, the elephant at the Los Angeles Zoo, was shot. Old elephants can become uncontrollable, and the zoo staff decided to protect themselves. 1939
Execution of terrorists who staged an explosion in the Cathedral of Holy Week in Bulgaria, killing more than 200 people died,
Bizarre photos of the Ethiopian thief catcher. After drinking a stimulating mix of unknown ingredients, the priest throws a rope over the plaintiff and guides him, closing his eyes, to the alleged culprit. The 1929 year
Bizarre disguise photos. Dutch tanks disguised in flowers, shortly before the German invasion. May 5, 1940
Dr. Heinz makes an injection of fluids taken from a live hare to a person, which, together with ultraviolet radiation and gymnastics, should lead to rejuvenation. Berlin, 1925
Disguise of British military equipment as elephants, India, WWII
Daughter of the German movie star Marlene Dietrich, starring in the film The Slutty Empress directed by Joseph von Sternberg with her mother. Hollywood, 1934
Charles Jones, 22, is reading to his underage fiancée, Eunice Winstead, nine years old. Their wedding was approved in Tennessee, but not accepted in the rest of the United States. 1937
John Russell’s band warming the public before the Beatles’ performance, 1964
An American lawyer, who wants to remain anonymous, reads out his testimony on investigating a financial fraud case. Ohio, 1933
Adolf Hitler in the national trousers of the Tyroleans and Bavarians called lederhosen. It was a campaign photo to gain more popularity in the Southern regions of Germany, June 12, 1927
A WWI postcard. A German looking at Notre Dame through binoculars is threatened with a saber by the ghost of Napoleon.