Hey all. Today, my wee li'l family took an outing to the small town of Jenks, Oklahoma. We've been there several times wandering through the antique shops. There were quite a few very old photo albums. The oldest being from a post civil war era family. I carefully flipped through every single page of all of the picture albums I found. Some were just loose photos of various people doing various things at various places. One even showed Mount rushmore being carved. I can't help but be mesmerized by looking at those people in a time far away from today, smiling and posing by the family model T. Or a young man dressed in a military uniform from a bygone era. Imagining what that day was like for them is very interesting for me. Knowing that probably all of those people have passed on reminds me of how short life is. It was a fun, nostalgic day. I was just wondering if anyone else out there has the same yearning to see photographs of days long past. Oooooor am I just a freaky weirdo.
Ohh you are weird, but I am exactly the same. For me it started when I was in college majoring in art, During long photography hours in the darkroom, I began to stray from my own images. I went to flea markets and found old negatives from every format, and year practically since cameras have been in existance. Glass negatives of families, large format, small format, black and white, color, etc (photography was my emphasis). I began to wonder what the people did, who ended up with who,did the gentleman come back from the war?, what the location looks like now. I began buying up albums, photos etc for cheap, and began postinga few of them on flickr (interesting ones)until a new project came along. I have literally boxes of photos that I love looking at which I will eventually post. Obviously Ozark and St. Louis are my top picks,but I like entertaining photos, photos that were abstract, and artistic when photography was more expensive and time consuming, and art was different than it is now. It is easy for my to take a random photo of my feet, but a large format photo of 1930s feet is so much cooler!
(this is beginning to sound like a drug admission)
I later moved onto the hard stuff. Postcards. Photos are the gateway ephemera. They lead to Postcards, and Maps, and yearbooks, all musty and water spotted, yellowed from time, but I spend literally hours each month combing flea markets for all my stuff. Postcards literally tell the story on the reverse of what was going on it dates it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32289589@N05/sets/72157608992402069/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/32289589@N05/sets/72157608992402069/)
I will continue to search through until I find a photo with me/ or someone that looks a heck of a lot like me....weird I know, but someone out there has to look like me in the history of time!
I began collecting old cameras too, and now I am attempting to retrofit them with either smaller format film, or digital parts to create, modern, but similar looking vintage type photography. I have an article on how to accomplish this that is posibly going to be in several magazines in the upcoming months if you are interested. More details to come when the publishers get back to me!
I really like the Chain of Rocks Bridge one...
That's a funny coincidence. Just a couple of weeks ago we were in a resale shop, carefully flipping through a Victorian-era family photo album. There was nothing to identify the family, other than some first names written on the backs of the photos, and some photos and frames were embossed with the St. Louis studio where they were made or processed.
We thought what a shame it was that the family didn't have these wonderful photos showing their ancestors and how and where they lived. Doing genealogy, I know how precious the photos are that have been passed down.
KB Craig-that's how I feel! How is it that these photos weren't kept by the families? Although, I'll bet it happens more often than not.
Now, Rube- YOU sir, are much weireder than me. And I love it! Your posted flickr photos are way cool. I especially love the double exposure of the two men by the Model T with the ghostly image of the sitting lady. And the school kids. The one that really sticks in my mind is '1924". Thanks for sharing these. I'm pretty sure I have a new obsession with old photos now. Let the weirdness commence!
I only fabricated the names for 2 photos in that batch. The cactus photo, the birthday cake photo, everything else had things written on the back like "memorial day" "1924" and even yes, "meet Edward" . One thing that bothers me about one guy out here is that I have learned over time...ALL of his photos are written on the reverse-HE MAKES IT ALL UP!!!! I only know this because I have found all the photos oddly enough have the same handwriting (now this is over a 2-3 yr period) now it possibly could be all info written down from what is written in an album, but I doubt ALL photos had captions.
The chain of rocks photo- though small -is amazing seeing that the bridge being built that is still standing as an icon of Rt 66. It is now a walking trail, with the iconic water works visible from the deck of the bridge. It spans St. Louis -Ill. The nearby Bigfoot Truck drove across the closed bridge in the 90's on TV, and the bridge was used in 1981 in the final escape scene from "Escape From New York" much of which was filmed in StL which was in very bad shape at the time. Side note, I lived about 10 minutes from the bridge during the filming, and the first few years of my life, it wasn't a good area! I am out at the bridge about once a month with friends, or family nearby, great place huh Okla!
more info on Escape from NY-then and now photos
http://www.theefnylapage.com/shootinglocations.htm (http://www.theefnylapage.com/shootinglocations.htm)
Mr. Dugan, if I can ever figure out how to post a picture here in my comments, I've got a really great photo of a man at the docks in Chicago circa 1930's-40's.
Tony, many of us have free Photobucket accounts. We upload photos there and embed them here.
On this topic, we did this last year in St. Louis:
http://www.doublekeytreasurehunts.com/index.php (http://www.doublekeytreasurehunts.com/index.php)
The kit came in a generic box. Inside was a parent guide, but for the kids there were authentic newspapers (one with a telegram from General Sherman about witnessing the driving of the golden spike), railroad stock certificates (very ornate), old photos of the supposed treasure hunter from the "Double Key Treasure Society", and others.
There were clues that took us to all sorts of cool places in St. Louis, where we had to look for the answers that would eventually guide us to the key to the treasure box that was also in the kit. This thing was really well put together, and I notice it has been tweaked since last year. They also have hunts in other locations now.
Look it over. The expense was worth it - it really made some things come alive for our daughter. Honestly, it took us to a couple of places we would have never been interested in before, but we are happy that it did.
Well guys, I'll try to post this old pic. Hope it magically appears, as I seem to be "technically challenged" all of a sudden.
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff92/pintfull/antique%20photos/maninchicago.jpg)
Great photo, I would have bought that one too!
(sidenote all you needed to do was create a link to the photo with one of the buttons on the compose screen)
My article outlines how to take photos like this one that I took below, digitally with the use of a digital camera, and an older model large format film camera. Not all cameras work, but the results are wonderful once you get the hang of it.
(http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu218/rubedugans/unionstation.jpg)
Here is one from Tuesday
(http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu218/rubedugans/grantsfarm.jpg)
Here are 2 tin types that I picked up at the local flea market while sifting through photos
$1.00 for the portrait-this one doesn't translate well, but the eyes are amazingly clear in this one. Moreso than any photo I have ever taken
(http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu218/rubedugans/scan002.jpg)
$0.25 because these two were damaged
(http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu218/rubedugans/scan.jpg)
I picked these up yesterday + 2 others for $1.50.
(http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu218/rubedugans/manleaning.jpg)
(http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu218/rubedugans/conductor.jpg)
(http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu218/rubedugans/1910tree.jpg)
(http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu218/rubedugans/stairs.jpg)
Love the shot of the guy that looks like a train conductor. They are all interesting...I always thought it a shame that when family members pass on, the younger generation just throws those old photos away. Totally crazy, if you ask me. But the flea markets are full of that stuff. My sister has a big album full of tintypes that must date from just post civil war. My grandparents went to auctions, picked that album up in a box of stuff they bought years ago for a dime or a quarter. When they passed, nobody wanted the album, so my sister took it home.
Is it me? Or does the guy with the pipe look like Frank Burns after M*A*S*H? LOL! :D
I mentioned on one of the threads about photos that I was somewhat of a photography buff...have enjoyed taking pictures since high school. I wanted to show off a little bit...not SDC related...but I've posted a half dozen recent photos I took on my Flickr site, if you want to take a look.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/juniordugan
Cool Pics, Junior. Love the memorial chapel!
Thanks!