Found Photographs

[Joe Smigiel]

My great-grandparents circa 1916.
Jonathan

Wonderful portraits Jonathon.

[Tin Can]

So nice to have! How big were the prints?

Just think, today's youth will never have a picture as nice or long lived as these.

They even combed their hair!

My great-grandparents circa 1916.



Jonathan

[jcoldslabs]

My aunt just moved into a retirement home in Florida and has been sending me old family things as she downsizes. I feel pretty lucky since she and I were never close, but she seems to understand my interest in both family and photographic history.

Randy, both portraits are printed side by side on the same 8x10 piece of paper. The resilience of vintage film and prints continues to amaze me.

Jonathan

[jcoldslabs]

The reflective bed of my scanner has been broken for nearly a year (the bulb burned out), but a friend recently gave me his old scanner so I'm back in business. I'll try not to flood this thread going forward, but I've got quite a backlog of vintage photos--some family, some not--to scan.




Jonathan

[ImSoNegative]

My great-grandparents circa 1916.




Jonathan

I love these portraits, they look so distinguished, I bet getting your picture taken back then was really a treat and a special occasion

[ImSoNegative]

keep them coming jonathan, I could look at shots like this all day

[djdister]

A somewhat askew shot of my Dad (on the left) with a buddy during WWII in Australia, circa 1943-44. I don't know the exact location, but someone from Down Under might recognize the rocks...

[jcoldslabs]

Speaking of WWII, here's a shot of my wife's grandfather in uniform. He was deaf but faked his way through basic training by lip reading, but he was discharged before he ever saw combat once they figured out about his disability.




Jonathan

[jcoldslabs]

Here are some shots of my grandparents around the time they met in 1938.












Jonathan

[tgtaylor]

My great-grandparents circa 1916.




Jonathan

I just started readingThe Origins of American Photography 1839-1885: From Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate, Keith F. Davis, 2007, and your grandparents portrait may have been taken in the style of what was know as the "crayon Daguerreotype" patented by John A. Whipple in 1849. "It entailed photographing a subjects head through an oval opening in a large white card which was kept in motion during the exposure which yielded a pleasing soft cameo effect around the head - the tones in the face and shoulders were normally strong, fading to a creamy white around the periphery of the image. These vignette portraits were popular and other daguerreotypists produced their own versions of this simple technique." (ibid., page 33).

Thomas