Mystery pictures

Often when going through the archives files, there are photos with no identification as to who, what, when, where or why the pictures were taken. Sometimes you  can make a good guess if you can identify a person in the picture or if the file has some kind of label to identify the activity. But then you get a picture like this Renaissance looking couple in a file labeled “President’s Cabinet-Group photos”

mystery1

In all the other photos in that file, people are dressed in formal black ties and gowns in a setting of a banquet room, so where should this picture be filed? I have absolutely no idea! Pretty sure it has nothing to do with the Presidents Cabinet.

Then there are those pictures with some vague label “1980′s” and you can tell the location – in this case in one of the rooms of Mercy College’s Ward Conference Center. But what is the girl doing standing on the chair wearing a dress of some sort like she is rehearsing for a beauty pageant with that sash?

mystery2

Then there is always the question as to who took the picture and how did it end up in our files? I suppose now with everybody owning phones that takes pictures, there will be billions of pictures that in a few years, will be as much of a mystery as these are today.