Hobbies And Interests
Things You'll Need
Instructions
Analyze the clothing of any women in the photograph. Though fashion trends tend to change on a yearly basis, you can use fashion to date a photograph fairly easily. Using a fashion history book, compare the women's clothing in your picture with that of women's clothing from each decade in your fashion history book.
Analyze hair style trends. Though hair trends also come and go, they tend to stick around for a few years at a time, which can make dating a picture much easier. Using your fashion history book, analyze the hair in your photographs. You can use such fashion cues such as that of bangs, which did not become popular until the 1910s. It is recommended to use women's hair when dating a photograph, because men's hairstyles generally have not changed so much.
Use any cultural cues in your photo. For example, if you had a photograph that had a Ford Model T automobile in it, you could probably narrow the date of the picture down to the early 1900s. And if you saw a computer in a photograph you would know that the photograph was taken within the past few decades.
Analyze the material the photograph was printed on. Throughout the history of photography, photos have been printed on different materials. For example, in the 1830s photos were printed onto silver-plated copper, but by the 1850s glass and metal prints were common.