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old photos == time machines

Godfrey

Well-known member
A few weeks back I bought a Nikon Coolscan V from someone on the forum (jeez, can't remember who, but thank you! it is in great shape...!) as an upgrade to my Coolscan IV. The Coolscan IV sold for about what I paid for it four-five years ago, so the V was a bargain.

Anyway, in the process of cleaning out a closet this weekend I found three Kodak Carousel trays full of slides. I haven't owned a Carousel projector in a long time. What better way to "break in" the V than by scanning these slides before they disintegrate entirely?

I didn't get through all of them, just the first 90 out of 300+. But I found some amazing gold, photos that I'd forgotten I had. These two are particularly poignant to me.


Dr. Francis M. and Louise E. DiGiorgi - Queens, NY - Dec 27, 1970


Carmina and Maryann Pingue - Queens, NY - Dec 27, 1970

That's my mother and father, grandmother and aunt, on the Sunday after Christmas in 1970. I made the photos with a Nikon S2 rangefinder that someone from my high school photo club had loaned me. Amazing the little details that you can remember ...

All of them have passed away now, my mother and her sister most recently (2008) ... but the truly amazing thing to realize is that this photo of my father is the last photograph ever made of him. He had a heart attack on the way to work the following morning and passed away in the hospital on New Years Day, 1971.

Scanning these and dozens of other photos spanning from 1968 to 1995 that were in these carousel trays, I feel lucky that I've caught them before they were destroyed or lost. My brothers and uncle will enjoy the heck out of seeing them too ... I doubt anyone else has ever seen them!

Machines that generate Time Machines in our hands, every day. That's what we've got as photographers. It is amazing, and should not be taken for granted.

As we nose into the holidays, don't forget to get some pictures where YOU are in the photo too... The future is waiting for your photos.

(BTW: the Coolscan V worked flawlessly with VueScan on Mac OS X "Lion". I didn't do much other than use the "light" automatic scratch and dust removal setting, and just a minor amount of color and contrast rebalancing in Lightroom. I'd rather have them look like what they are ... old film ... than try to make them perfect and modern. ;-)
 
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