Photos from undeveloped film in antique cameras

[cmpalmer]

I saw this today on Boing Boing:

http://westfordcomp.com/updated/found.htm

 

[greyflash]

I had fun looking through these old image. Neat idea and layout the guy used to display these.

 

[Beezle]

Incredible. I will never go to an antique thing or other with the wife without looking over the old cameras again!

 

[patrickh]

Neat - thanks for sharing. I think the soldier was in Italy just post-war by the looks of it. Certainly the shots at the end were from Rome.

 

[Rich Gibson]

Fascinating. My godmother passed away in 1997 and as executor I had to deal with the house and its contents. One piece was a ziplock back full of photos from the 1920's and 1930's. About 10% of the images were not of my aunt or any relatives I could identify. I wondered, going through them, about the person(s) in the images. Who were they? What was their relationship to my aunt?

It's also interesting because people in that time period weren't as used to cameras as we are now. Very few from before WWII had people with those "snap shot" grins. One particular image of an eight year old (guessing) girl was particularly haunting. There seemed like so much hardship in her face; like there wasn't really anything to smile about. I still wonder who she is and if she is alive.

What an ingriguing set of images.

Thanks, rich

 

[TOLady]

This is so cool, thanks so much for sharing this site with us, Chris. Interesting to peek into lives of long ago.

Rich: a few years ago, I sat down with my mother and all her old photos (and a bottle of wine to keep her interested!) and wrote in pencil on the back of all the photos the names of subjects and approximate dates. Once the older family members are gone, there is no way to retrieve the info... I'd highly suggest others do the same (including the wine temptation!!! *LOL*)

 

[fks]

hi sandi and rich-

we have several hundred negatives of family photos from the early 1900's. i remember seeing them back when i was a kid, but never gave them a second thought until a couple of years ago. i've scanned some of them, but it's a tedious process and have a long way to go.

most of the people in the photos have passed away, and those that are still alive are thousands of miles away without an internet connection. i would love to catalog the negatives, but the ability to identify the people, dates and locations is probably gone as the family waited too long.

ricky

 

[SRA]

I really enjoyed that site. Thank you for sharing it. It makes me want to go through my parents old trunk and search out photos from yesteryear. The soldiers photos bring back memories of my mothers photos of Italy soon after the war.

What a rush. I'm going to suggest this site to my b/w photo class.

 

[Rich Gibson]

hi sandi and rich-

we have several hundred negatives of family photos from the early 1900's. i remember seeing them back when i was a kid, but never gave them a second thought until a couple of years ago. i've scanned some of them, but it's a tedious process and have a long way to go.

most of the people in the photos have passed away, and those that are still alive are thousands of miles away without an internet connection. i would love to catalog the negatives, but the ability to identify the people, dates and locations is probably gone as the family waited too long.

ricky

It may be a herculian effort, but do it. My grandmother was born in the Austro-Hungarian Republic. In all my years I never asked her the name of the town where she was born/lived. She passed 15 years ago and it's all lost. Last April her last living child, died with Alzheimers so he remembered nothing. If any of you reading this have thoughts in that direction please go through with it. It isn't hard to press all your aunts and uncles for birth names and places...write it all down.

Now I'm going to have to dig to find my Scots-Irish, English, Polish, Czech(?) roots. Drat! If only I'd asked a simple 20-40 questions during the time I was in high school and college!!!!

Rich

 

[gho]

w o w !

It's a strange realization that most of the people in those photos are long gone

Sure does inspire me to take more photos of my kids, and not worry so much about technical perfection.

Strange too to think that in 50 years, people will look back on our photos produced by 12.4mp digicams and comment on how poor the image quality produced by early electronics really were, and how much better they have it now (the future).

 

[cmpalmer]

Or be boasting about how they succesfully extracted an image from a 50 year old .nef file found on a damaged CF card they found in an antique store, but aside from the EXIF data, they don't know anything anything about the photos or who is in them...

I agree about taking more photos of kids, friends, and family -- but this and the recent hurricanes should also remind us to document our pictures fully and to make durable and offsite backups, as well.

 

[SRA]

I like the allusions to our poor photography when the web owner mentions our digital shoot shoot mentality. (Paraphrased) "Back then photographers took more time to compose a photo. Photos were more serious moments than today."

Makes me want to buy a Leica and shoot carefully.

 

[Graeme]

I, like many of you, still shoot film...... with my FM2. Still saving hard for a Dslr.
Mostly of my kids when they are playing and enjoying themselves as when I get the prints/slides back............ it just makes me smile. And them! Which makes it all worth it really!

Looking at this site it was sort of............. well sad really........... to think that many of these people and children are no longer with us.
So............. guys and girls............ live for today...... it's not here that long!

But most importantly......... enjoy your families and friends..... they are the most precious things that any of us will ever have....... even more than the eagerly anticipated D200!

This site was a total reality check.............. be safe.

Graeme :smile:

 

[SRA]

I, like many of you, still shoot film...... with my FM2. Still saving hard for a Dslr.
Mostly of my kids when they are playing and enjoying themselves as when I get the prints/slides back............ it just makes me smile. And them! Which makes it all worth it really!

Looking at this site it was sort of............. well sad really........... to think that many of these people and children are no longer with us.
So............. guys and girls............ live for today...... it's not here that long!

But most importantly......... enjoy your families and friends..... they are the most precious things that any of us will ever have....... even more than the eagerly anticipated D200!

This site was a total reality check.............. be safe.

Graeme :smile:

Graeme,

Excellent comments, thank you.

 

[Graeme]

That's ok Scott................. I know many people on this forum feel the same way............. photography is a great medium to show people what we feel and think about..........and what's trully important......and this is one of the friendliest places to do it!

For me the 'Cafe is a lot of reading (and learning.....important!!).... and not much posting............ but I'm always there!

Take care my friend! Hope all is well in your life.

Graeme :smile: