Found Photographs

[mdm]

I bought theese on trademe. 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 Glass plates. Anyone else got found photographs to share.

[Vaughn]

5x7 glass plate negative -- found several, lent them out and never got them back.

Scanned contact print

Taken in Ferndale, CA

[Jay DeFehr]

I bought theese on trademe.

Can I ask, why?

[mdm]

Can I ask, why?

Because I am less self absorbed than you are Jay. The world around us is a wonderful place and taking a risk on some glass plates is one way of connecting with it. Its a much more constructive way than for example the obscure and obtuse psuedophilosophy that you seem to specialise in.

[Jay DeFehr]

Because I am less self absorbed than you are Jay. The world around us is a wonderful place and taking a risk on some glass plates is one way of connecting with it. Its a much more constructive way than for example the obscure and obtuse psuedophilosophy that you seem to specialise in.

Wow David, a little defensive? Paranoid? Hostile? It was an honest question, but I see any conversation is wasted on a tiny little man like you.

[Preston Capes]

I love these images, old photographs tell us about the world we live in now and that is wonderful.

Thank you for sharing, I have some old glass plates from the 1930's of villages in East Anglia they are just views with no people in them so imagine to my surprise when I visited the villages they hadn't changed!

Pictures with people in them are a wonderful slice of social history.

[Richard M. Coda]

5x7" glass plate neg. I have a few more that I have printed but never scanned. I'll try and get to them someday.

[ImSoNegative]

5x7" glass plate neg. I have a few more that I have printed but never scanned. I'll try and get to them someday.

I love this one!!

[ImSoNegative]

The image from a 5x7 glass plate negative found in a printing frame that I had ordered.

spooky looking

[Craig Fransen]

In addition to making LF images, I too enjoy collecting and scanning old photos, especially glass negatives. Random pictures are nice, but what is truly interesting is when I know something about the photographer or the subject. Armed with these and resources such as ancestry.com, etc., it is often possible to track down the subjects' descendants.

My first try at this was with a set of photos purchased at the local St. Vincent de Paul of Wadena, Mn c. 1905. Some of the plates were in envelopes with labels. I was able to track down a descendant of one photo (http://public.fotki.com/cfransen/old...09-neg-no.html), a lady in Massachusetts as I recall.

But a real gold mine turned up when I purchased a lot of 1,500 8 x 10 glass negatives from Bushnell Studios, Portland, OR c. 1915. The more I scanned, the more I studied these negatives, the more entranced I became. Almost every one was inscribed with the subject's last name, along with the order (e.g., 5 8 x 10 buff hazy), and the photographer's catalog number. So not only could I try to track down descendants, but I could put the photos into a timeline.

Almost every negative had been retouched. From faint scratches on the faces, to scratches outlining shoulders, etc., to wax crayon (or something) highlighting wedding dresses, to painted backgrounds, added details such as clock faces, entire book cases, the artistry is to me astounding.



The ones online currently as just the first ones I scanned. Many more (and more beautiful) images to come.

See the Bushnell folder at this link:

http://public.fotki.com/cfransen/old-photographs/