From glass plate. Newark, New Jersey, sometime between 1917 and 1919.
From glass plate. Newark, New Jersey, sometime between 1917 and 1919.
Keith,
My wife's mother's family is from Idaho going way back. Her great-grandfather had a farm there, I think in Shoshone. Many of these pictures I am now scanning are from that side of the family. Without landmarks it's tough to tell just where they are, but eastern Idaho is most likely. Unless they were out for a longer drive I bet the bridge you refer to spans the Snake river instead of the Columbia, but waiting for a ferry to pass is still a good guess.
We are fortunate to have a good photographic record going back to around 1900 for both sides of our families. I don't want to dominate this thread, but if other people are enjoying the images I'll keep going....until I run out!
J.
Not sure who this is, but I love the perfectly placed lens flare.
Jonathan
At the beach near Santa Barbara, CA, circa 1940.
Jonathan
And the shooter is carefully following the Sunny 16 rule, of Sun at your back and is really hip well before Vivian Maier by including selfie shadows.
This print is only lacking crinkle edges!
Great stuff, make sure those are all packed carefully for the next 75 years!
Originally Posted by jcoldslabs
At the beach near Santa Barbara, CA, circa 1940.
Jonathan
I have archival albums for the good ones and archival boxes for the rest. My wife and I don't have kids, so all of these photos will get passed down to my cousin's three girls. The oldest is only 12 at the moment, but I hope one of them shows an interest in family history or all of these photos might get tossed in the dumpster no matter how well preserved they are when they leave my care.
J.
My grandmother in the kitchen around 1939. It's so easy for us as photographers to focus on the exceptional and overlook everyday scenes like this, but I am so glad my grandfather bothered to take these shots. I like them better than all of the "special event" photos (birthdays, anniversaries, family reunions) put together.
Jonathan
Tossing and destroying old photos seems to be a family sport. It's as if they are too heavy or dangerous, despite their small size and storage requirements. I caught my father just as he was about to throw out all our old family photos. Both my ex-wives would get drunk and toss my pics out and cut people out of group pictures, particularly images of my first wife. I now have none of her and she is deceased.
My life has been cursed with destroyers of images. I could go on, but the memories are painful.
Trivia point of the day - those wiggly edges were called 'deckle'.
I am familiar with deckle as taught to me by a printermaker, who insisted fine paper for drawing and watercolor is always torn to size and never cut. Thus creating deckle.
But old photos had a very rough fake deckle, I call crinkle. The photo prints were obviously not torn to create the edge condition. It seemed machine made.
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