Saturday, February 4, 2012

The German American Collection, A Single Roll of Film

























































I hope Kodak survives bankruptcy and comes back better than ever. I really hope that Kodak continues to make film, paper, and chemistry. Anyway, this post is a bit of Kodak history. There was a time when the company made automatic film printing machines for the local film lab. Press a button, and focus would set for whatever film format was being used. Then, it was time to set exposure. Unfortunately, the earlier automatic printers could only do one exposure setting per roll. A mythical average setting which sometimes didn't work for a single frame. (Without seeing the negatives, there is no way I can tell if good prints can be made from some of the darker images.) And finally, the photos made on a pre-perforated sheet of paper and then loaded in a Kodak supplied folder, printed by Kodak, with the local photo finishers name and address, and a nifty Kodak advertisement on the back cover. As usual, click on German-American in the labels section to bring up the whole collection.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Ladies Like Hats






They also like fur.

3 Sisters








An early suburb, with three sisters posing on a tree stump? It does look as if all the houses are similar enough that they were probably built by the same developer. The little girl on the right, I think, wants to have a bit of individuality.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Grab Bag Photos






It was a very simple deal. An envelope, guaranteed to have at least 100 photos for five dollars. Well, that's the explanation on why I have this color snapshot from the disco era. Very strange indeed to put up a picture of people who may be younger than me. And by the way, the envelope had 103 photos, and most of them were black & white and a lot older than this one. Some have already been posted, with many more to come.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Mystery Locale





Time to throw out a bit of a mystery. Where was this photograph taken? It could be Cuba, a fairly popular vacation spot for Americans before Castro and our ongoing tiff with Havana. Maybe Panama. This image goes back to a time when people took ships to get from point A to point B, rather than as a floating version of Vegas, and the canal was a pretty common trip. Mexico, maybe Manila. Hey, I'm not lazy. I spent a couple of hours looking through Google images and couldn't find a match.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

How To Take a Photograph...









Lesson number one. It's always best to focus on the main subject rather than the background. Points for being consistent. Dated "Oct 1956"

Friday, January 27, 2012

There's a Riot Going On!







Well, probably not a riot, just a plain old ordinary fire. But I'm a Sly and the Family Stone fan, and I couldn't resist.