THIS SUMMER, I've already spent about a hundred hours editing, archiving, and digitizing old family photos—prints, slides, and negatives, some of them going back to the 1920s. (I've even got a shot of my grandfather, wearing a Communist uniform in the late 20s.)¶ In 1951, my dad, an eighteen-year-old German emigrant, showed up on Canadian shores with nothing, really, but his camera, a Kodak Retina, one with a Carl Zeiss lens. He used that camera until the early seventies, when he switched to a Pentax. He seemed to stop taking pictures in about 1990.
But, before then, he took thousands of 'em! Mostly, they're preserved as slides or negatives, in dozens of boxes. Some of those boxes are organized; some of them aren't. Sheesh.
Have you ever scanned photographs? It's like watching paint dry. I expect this to take me a while.
I'm writing some family history, too. (See Chunk's Mom for the beginnings of that project.)
It's late, but something makes me want to share some of these pics.
¶ These first two are from 1952, in eastern Canada (Niagara Falls?). (My grandmother and mother; then my mother.)
¶ The mountain shot is from 1968. That's my dad and my littlest brother ("Dr. Ron"), who, these days, has little kids of his own. He takes them to the Sierra Nevada, too. 
¶ The next two pics are from the mid-seventies. The shoreline is between Laguna Beach and Newport Beach. Not sure about the desert scene.
I almost never took pictures back then, but, back in '75, I took this shot of Attila the Pup ("Billy"). What a guy!
¶ The next two are from the mid-eighties, when my dad was a director of a local water district. He took lots of trips up north to check out rivers and reservoirs and such. The Mono Lake shot is from a family vacation, apparently.
¶Last: my dad's Retina, which, naturally, I snagged years ago. Still works fine after sixty years!Have a good Fourth!
6 comments:
Yes, but when your father showed up in Canada did he have only $8.00 in his pocket and a dream?
This is beautiful, and the camera is just incredible. Thanks for showing us.
I wonder if Chunks hair will follow with this old mans.
Awesome pictures.
They don't make cameras quite like they used to.
The photo of the Sierras with clouds--wonderful! Your Dad seems to have been channelling Ansel Adams, only with color.
Do you ever still use the old camera, Chunk?
I'm a modern guy: strictly digital.
I admire your archiving efforts. I'm now an orphan, with all relatives gone. My boxes of old pictures, too many unlabeled, are lost history. There's no one left to respond to inquiries: "Who's this? Where was this taken? What's she doing?" And when my own children now ask those inevitable questions, I don't remember the last names I heard when once I asked nor can I remember the the events captured on now-disintegrating film. Keep up the good work--and thanks for sharing your history.
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