My Father's Photographs

grandmaR

My mother started taking black and white print photos as a young girl, and I have a whole box of b&w prints taken by or of her as a child. She kept taking photos for her whole life. But she took a back seat to my dad when they married.

My dad started taking color slides and also 16 mm moves very early. This was one he took of me c 1942



My mother took all of his slides and numbered and rated them from Fair to Good to Excellent. I've been having the slides digitized and the last set of about 250 slides taken in 1965, there were three that she rated excellent. One of them he apparently entered or thought of entering in a photo competition because he wrote on the slide the equipment he used.

He called this
Mid-Atlant<wbr>ic tea party - Statendam-<wbr>July12, 1965. Exakta XVIIa - high speed Ektachrome



There were two others in this set that my mother marked as Excellent. One of the crew on the Statendam painting the mast



and the other one was taken the previous fall


This one of him taking his photo in the cabin mirror, she only counted as Good



Would anyone be interested in more of these old photos? Comments?

RyanS

I'd love to see more. These photographs remind me how important it is to include the details that help us understand people. As the image gets older, I do believe those details become much more important.

grandmaR

My mother said that if my dad couldn't take photos, he went to sleep because he wasn't interested if he couldn't take picture of it. I'm sort of the same way. If I know that it is not allowed to take photos someplace, I won't even go in. My dad used the Exakta and also periodically bought Leicas when he was in Germany (we went first in 1950). He used either Kodachrome or Ektachrome film unless he ran short on a trip and had to buy Agfachrome or something. He had an exposure meter and a tripod (which he didn't use that often), but no flash. He also had a Poloroid.

In the 1963-1965 time frame (photos number 7301 to 8500), my mother deemed these photos excellent (I don't always agree - I don't like this one very much). This is a photo of hops growing in a field


I do like this one with my mother's head showing along the curve


That one and this one were taken in Nordlingen, Germany - the one below is labeled "Historical Staircase". It was taken from their hotel.



The next time we get to ones she thought were Excellent was in Boulder Canyon (Colorado)




but I don't think those are so special

I like this one better


These were taken in Winter Park, Colorado



This one he used a telephoto lens

grandmaR

This is one of my favorites - it was the Eagles Nest (Hitler's place) in 1950 before it was cleaned up like it is today - My mother and sister and my mother's friend's husband are on the left, and I am on the right.

This is another one from 1950 when Germany was divided into 4 parts after WWII - my mother is talking to the two customs officers.


In Switzerland in 1950

Gornegrat


Storm clouds Zermatt

anonymouscuban

Moar!!!!

grandmaR

I stopped doing these because I didn't think anyone as looking at them. But here are a couple "moar"



This was apparently a still life that my dad set up.



I don't know if they have this anymore, but this photo was taken c 1943 at Pikes Peak. The Indians would dance and pose for photos for a fee. In this photo my sister is wearing the headdress of the Indian and it is heavy so she is crying - she's about 3 here and I'm 5.


This was at a coal mine in PA c 1947. Daddy was fascinated with the pulleys



This one is called "Bottom Split - going down" My mother is the woman on the left in the white headscarf.



This is my sister and me posing with the mine superintendent. My dad had an experiment that he was doing on cosmic radiation and he had some animals at the top of Mount Evans, and others in lead shielded cages down in the bottom of the mine. My mother went down in the mine with him, but we didn't go, so we are just pretending to be prospectors. My sister has her arm in a sling because she has a greenstick fracture of her forearm.

grandmaR

My mother with pigeons at Atlantic City in 1947

These were taken at the various beaches in Woods Hole Mass. Some of the people were people that worked for Daddy and some were other scientists that worked up there in the summer.


Mrs. Marianello



This was some kind of car ferry up on Cape Cod



Cuttyhunk

Prior

Fantastic shots, very cool to dig those all up! Thanks for sharing.

grandmaR

Dawson Minn in 1948



The old days in Yellowstone when the bears came begging at the cars - Note: We were camping - we just put a ground cloth down and put sleeping bags on top. We didn't have a tent. So in Yellowstone, they made us take a cabin because of the bears. We were there July 4, 1948 and all the fireworks allowed were sparklers



Great Cone Geyser



Morning Glory Pool the way it was before it got clogged up with handkerchiefs


Cheyenne Frontier Days parade - 1948



Indian encampment at the rodeo





And here we are at Garden of the Gods with the Indians again - my sister (now age 8), me (age 10) and our three cousins

grandmaR

This horse is stuffed. There's a ladder on the other side so you can get on



My uncle ran the State Game Farm - this was an eagle that someone shot



Free Range Bull?? (near Nucla



Uravan (uranium and vanadium) Someplace near here we saw a fireplace that was made of uranium bearing rock - gives a new perspective on a hot fireplace.



A working cowboy - we encountered him and his partner driving a herd along the road



shack on the way to Hermit Lake - our brand new Ford is on the left



hail storm over the Wet Mountains



This is my dad - obviously my mom took this photo. He's using his 16 mm Bolex movie camera - it's not a very flattering photo of him

anonymouscuban

Please continue to share. I'm loving these photos. The one of your mother with the pigeons is my favorite.

grandmaR

If you like that one of my mother with the pigeons, how about this one of my grandmother - this is my sister's fav






Sand Dunes National Monument



Indian Pueblo- this is still the 1948 trip west - these were the home of the Indians that did the dancing for the tourists at the Garden of the Gods in the summer



Carlsbad Caverns



Now we are on our way home - this is the St. Louis Zoo back when they had circus acts as part of the zoo.



Miami - January 1949 - I'm eleven years old here



Not such a technically terrific photo - but this is the Orange Bowl game in 1949.



Atlantic City Boardwalk - 1949 - my grandmother, mother, sister, grandfather and me


more pigeons


New Orleans at Easter - Blackie is the horse's name and his scarlet carriage always leads the parade




Fort McHenry

grandmaR

Oil well near Hattiesburg MS


The old Harris house the Deer Crossing - near Oxford NC. House has been torn down so it no longer exists. Our car on the right

Now we are going to skip ahead to the summer of 1950 which I started in post #4



Looking down from Heidleberg Castle

There's an amusing story connected with this. My dad's parents were German immigrants - his mother came to the US when she was 14 in 1895 (the old lady with the pigeons was my mother's mother). So they spoke German at home. He had his movie camera to go up to the castle and he wanted to run the leader through the camera so he was panning around with it, and one of the other men in the car made some remark about a stupid American taking pictures against the sun. Assuming of course that my dad couldn't understand him. My dad didn't say anything right away, but a little later, he asked one of the men a question - in German.


London Bobby

grandmaR

Windsor



garden in back of Shakespeare's birthplace - my sister at the sundial



Avon River


Cathedral thru apothecary<wbr>'s jar



car we rented with two AA trouble shooter's



I don't know what this Scotsman is showing my mother



This is the Edinburgh High Street, looking east. The church tower is the Tron Kirk, and the photo looks to have been taken just down from St Giles Cathedral. If you keep going down this way you reach Holyrood House.



taxi



Edinburgh Castle - dog's graveyard

sentries



early morning - leaving Scotland

sheep eating our lunch



NY skyling - on our way home - August 1950

grandmaR

I still haven't figured out how to get from one area of this site to another. I don't know where to go to access the challenges. And I don't know whether to keep posting to this thread or to start another one.

The first two posts I made were from about 1963 based just on my mom's rating of the photos. Then I went back to the beginning and posted what I thought were interesting and possibly historic photos that showed how things were in the past without bothering to check my mom's rating on them. I've gotten more or less up to 1950. Note that I've had my parent's slides digitized and they have numbered the slides from 1 to 10,000 and then they stopped numbering them. The ones I've posted are up to about 2500.

I could start another thread just about the 50s if someone might be interested in seeing those photos which I have already got organized so it wouldn't be a lot of trouble to do. But I'd want to know that someone wanted to see them before I did it.