Watermelon 1913

[kiev4a]

This picture was scanned off a 4x5 glass plate negative. It shows my father, far left, and his brothers, eating watermelon in 1913. He would have been 11 years old at the time. I told him that watermelon appeared to have a lot of seeds. He looked closely and said, "No, as I remember, those were flies."

[John Parry]

Hi Wayne

What a delightful photograph, and a lovely memento. All crystal clear - you did a good job with the scan too. Somebody was really enjoying that melon. You look like your Dad too!

Isn't it strange that the development of scanner technology has made the resurrection of old pictures such as this achievable once more. A few years ago it would probably have been outside the skills of all but the most traditional of photography labs or dedicated amateurs - and in the former case, prohibitively expensive.

As several posts have shown us, it is possible to see frozen time slices once again. I love these - any more where they came from? Anybody??

Regards - John

[kiev4a]

John:
The glass plates had some spots that were flaking off but Photoshop took care of that. It is amazing home well the image stood up over the years.
One reason I opted for a flatbed negative scanner (Canon 9950F) was it can handle negs up to 4x5 and I have a lot of 120, 21/4 x 3 1/4 and 4 x 5 negatives shot back in the early to mid 1900s.

[kiev4a]

Our family car -- a postwar Austin. This photo was taken about 1950. The last car in our family that could be cranked if the starter failed. There weren't many Austins in our area--any "foreign" cars of any type for that matter. It had semaphore turn signals and a sunroof that opened. If you opened it and stuck your head out it really shocked other motorists! I believe this photo was shot with a 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 Speed Graphic. Dad later traded the Austin in on a 1955 Volkswagen--one of the first 10 sold in Idaho.

[PeterW]

Hi Wayne,

I used to work on those old Austins when I first came out of the RAF. Don't know how they coped with Idaho roads, but they were quite tough reliable little cars on UK roads.

Peter

[PeterW]

Lovely Watermelon picture, Wayne, and you've scanned it in beautifully. As John said, you take after your Dad.

BTW John,
Before scanners, or indeeed home computers, came in I used to copy old photographs for friends and relatives by using a copying stand and an extension tube behind the lens if necessary.

Photoshop and similar picture editing programs have made taking out blemishes and adjusting contrasts so much easier. In those days you made a first print, fairly low contrast because copying increased the contrast, labroriously took out blemishes with a fine brush and 'spotting colour' and then copied it again. And there wasn't an awful lot you could do with a badly faded original or one that was very dark in the highlights without increasing the contrast. A lot of work compared with what you can do today, and get better results. Replacing a missing part of a torn corner on a picture was almost impossible except for a very skilled retoucher, but today cloning makes it 'relatively' easy, or at least possible.

Peter

[Randy]

Wayne, those pictures are neat. They remind me of some pictures I saw in a book about Will Rogers.