Tiki Archaeology through Photos

Since the advent of scanners and photo grading programs, a lot has become possible. Not quite as much as when Deckard zooms in on and around objects in holographic photos in Bladerunner, but sometimes it feels like one is close. Here is a recent example:

I came across this photo in Merry Ovnick's seminal 1999 book "Los Angeles-The End of The Rainbow":

There was not much info on the place, and Tiki style was mentioned as just one of many themes in LA architecture. But since this was the only known image of this apartment building, and apartments actually CALLED "Tiki" are rare, I wanted to know more. The first thing I do is scan the image, so I can work with it on my desktop. That way I can blow it up to a larger size, and lighten it up:

This brought up several interesting questions about the architectural details:

Was that fishnet lamp hanging directly in front of the strange fire mosaic, or were the two attached?
Was there a carved beam in the center in the middle of the row of -yes- Chinese tiles?
AND: Was that really an 8 foot Tiki lurking in the shadows on the left side of the building?

Unfortunately, the above result was all I could tickle out of the small, low res B&W photo in the book, and research was doomed to end here. So I decided to contact the author, and she thankfully got her photographer to send me a high res version of the shot. This also gave me the address of the place, in Canoga Park, CA, and I was able to check its current state via Google earth:

Sigh. Well, waddaya expect. The photo in the book had been taken in 1982.
Also, the photographer took no other detail shots of the building, the photo was for a general survey of architectural styles.
BUT the scan she sent me was publication quality, a whopping 5.9 MB:

I already could see the outline of the Tiki clearer, but it was till too dark, so I made the gamma curve flatter and lightened it up, ignoring the blowing out of the highlights:

One tall Tiki indeed! Well the high resolution allowed me to zoom into some of the details and solve the other questions:

The fishnet float lamp was not hanging from the gable at all, it was uniquely cut in half and attached to the wall and the flame design, which I assume was all together back-lit (judging by the size of the window now in its place)

The part of the gable above the lamp was harder to recognize. But it could be that one each of the same Tiki mask were lashed on each side of the bamboo pole, facing the pedestrians:

And the Tiki revealed itself as being from the weird "Nose-tongue" tribe:

...a school not unknown in the Southland of LA. I had seen these at the Islander and the Tiki Tabu apartments:

Kind of an unfortunate concept by an unknown carver who must have felt he had hit upon a "signature" twist on the style...

The real surprise came though when I expanded the zoom search to the other areas. Yes, there were more Chinese tiles on the left side of the building, but what I had totally missed, and could not be seen by the human eye, was this fella!:

TWO big ones, right next to each other! He was partially obscured by what I take as a straight shot of a "For Rent" sign post, and also because his features are more washed out, like his palm root hairdo. Either he had been of inferior palm wood, or the second Tiki had been added later to replace his too quickly-aging colleague.

In any case, the results of this armchair expedition proved several things:

There are still more TIKI temples to be researched;
on some buildings, like this one, even though it had lots of details, the style was mainly cosmetic, easy to remove;
Desk top photo archeology can be great fun and still bring real surprise finds;
and dammit, if I only would have started exploring and photographing Tiki in the early 80s, there would have been so much more of it still around.... :)

I was inspired in this posting by the recent Kahiki slide finds here:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=18136&forum=5&start=330&341

...and the great job Tobor did in scanning and restoring color in them. Granted, it DOES help to have the originals, but many posts of zoomed-in brochures and postcards by fellow Tiki archeologists like DustyCajun and Sabu have proven that the scanner often sees more than the human eye, even in low res images!

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2011-01-31 15:24 ]

Pretty typical of the apartment buildings I remember as a child in Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and all over Orange County in the 60s.

Its exciting to know this thread will lead to other armchair discoveries!

Sven, that's a great example of the power of technology to help with our collective fascination(s). When I first got a scanner a long time ago, one of the first things I scanned was a few denominations of crisp currency. Fun to see all the little details that are nearly impossible to catch with the naked eye, or even a modestly dressed eye. Charles Phoenix always seems to be a wizard at noticing noteworthy nuances in his vintage slides.

Sometimes I've thought some TCers might appreciate a pseudo-tech thread with some tips for manipulating images - color correction, gamma, sharpening, etc.

As much as these hidden details come out with technology, ultimately there's only so much you can do with a pixel. I'm just waiting for the tools they have on CSI and other baloney shows, where they just command "zoom and enhance!" and suddenly you can read somebody's waist size on their Levis, from a satellite photo.

-Randy

Sooo many great details!
The half cut fish globe in the mosaic eye
and the radial of the lashings!
Great find Sven!

the GoogleEarth phot is quite sad...

a beautiful front facade reduced to corporate colonial....

On 2011-01-31 18:03, aquarj wrote:
Sometimes I've thought some TCers might appreciate a pseudo-tech thread with some tips for manipulating images - color correction, gamma, sharpening, etc.

Randy,

That would be a great thread. Your photos and scans are always so brilliant, I have wondered how you do it. I sort of limp around and would love to improve my editing skills.

Bigbro,

Nice score on the photo, very generous of the photographer to send you the hi-res scan. Now if we could only get a decent copy of that Wonder Lodge photo from the Kern County museum!

DC

Well said as usual Bigbro, nice thread. I have spent many hours manipulating and examining photos in pursuit of Tiki archeology and it is a really fun part of the hobby.

Modern technology has definitely helped in the research and documentation of Tiki history.

It's often funny how I search for a photo hoping to answer a question or satisfy my curiosity but once it's found it leads to ten times more questions.

The more you look at the photo's the more questions you get.

In the future more and more photo archives held in traditional storage will be published on the web. It is inevitable. Many are available now but that is only a fraction of what is sitting in boxes on shelves. Someday they will get around to the labor intensive task of scanning them into an on-line database and as this happens I believe many more historical tiki photos will be found by us TC archaeologists.

Here are a few examples of Tiki archeology through photo's and photo technology.

Artifact Comparison with cut and paste

Identity protection

Photoshop and Color Graphics

Extreme Contrast

For me, it's the urban fantasy stuff, and how it's applied, that make Tiki kitsch fun and interesting. Great stuff, bigbro !

If this is old news I apologize but I noticed this today and thought it was exciting.

Ren Clark's Polynesian Village

Now when you zoom in on the floor... WHOA! :o

Hello, Mr. Logo Tiki in the carpet! :D

So how many rolls of this stuff are sitting in some dusty warehouse in Pantego? :)

Very nice find! That adds Ren Clark's as the 3rd establishment with Tiki carpet patterns, after the Kapu Kai and Bob Lee's Islander.

Nice spot! I'll be sure to note it for my growing file on the Polynesian Village. Yes, lots of great details in old pics can be found with a bit of zooming and squinting.

GK