Time and Travel!

Well hello my lovelies! It`s that time of year again, when we put down our empty cocktail glasses, put on a scarf, and retreat into the indoors to spend quality time with our photo collections. Mother nature may be telling us to go fuck ourselves with every falling leaf but we have scarves and photos to prevent us from falling into seasonal depression. Right? Right? 

We do. We also have some nice travel pics from our summer holidays that included a little photo tourism. I loved this facet of our little trip to England this year, and the feeling of holding up an image that is 65 years old and observing all the differences and spooky similarities first-hand is the kind of tourism I highly recommend. There are so many reasons travel is immeasurably beneficial, but for someone like me who has a collection or an appreciation for photography specifically - it's a dimension of pleasure most hobbies aren't privileged to have. The ability to experience a location in person, with all your senses, builds an experience you can re-experience every time you go back to the original image that took you to that location. How wonderful it is to remember vividly how the cobbles felt under my flip-flops on this very passageway and how the flowers smelled just around the corner to the left. Fabulous. You have to try it.

Rye 1937. Here is the streetview for your wandering fingers.

Here I am enjoying the brief possession of that boy's ghost.

We'll start with Rye. Nice town. In the mess of excellent Dufay Colour glass slide photos I recently picked up, there were two from Rye. The friends we were visiting while over there recommended Rye as somewhere we'd like (before I received the photos in fact) and another friend John, was very enthusiastic when I said we would be there. He is a big fan of the Mapp & Lucia series, which mentions the very same crooked chimney seen here now and in the past (which I was utterly oblivious to until we got home).

Behind the Mermaid, Rye 1937 (foreground lady looking somewhat unimpressed and somewhat like a cross dresser).

Bad photoshopping notwithstanding, here am I in place of those two "ladies".

Quite a lot has changed at the Mermaid. I'll be more suspicious of that plaster and beam look from now on - I think I preferred the original bricks.

Ramsgate! 1937. 

Had a hard time matching this one with current reality so I thought it wasn't Ramsgate - but upon review, it is the same. Look at all those smartly dressed folks. 

Ramsgate! 1937.

Loved Ramsgate. There's a really nice patina on everything there. 

Ramsgate! 2012.

Note to the current boat owners in Ramsgate - need more flags. Otherwise everything looks pretty good.

Whitstable. 1937.

No boats today? 

Yep. Went to Whitstable. Saw the sights, got poisoned (Neil knocked a couple days off his holiday in favour of extreme illness. To each his own).

And of course, we remember the wonderful discovery of the Kings Arms (see here, March 2011). Since we were in the neighbourhood again, we had to do a re-do.

Man with "sandwich".

Me with picture of man with "sandwich".

Photo-tourism! Do it!

Stereo Realism is so fabulous!

Hi everyone! It's summer! You know, the time of year we abandon our computers...

But I haven't abandonned getting some sweet new items for the collection, including a gorgeous lot of Dufaycolour photos from 1937 England, but these stereo realist cards we'll visit first. They were such a nice surprise! These are my choice picks, but they pale in comparisson to how they look through a Brumberger viewer - with it's lovely glow and wonderful three dimentions. Seeing these in stereo makes you feel like you've dropped in on a private moment more than fifty years ago - which of course, you have!

Must be Ansco colour - fades like a sonofabitch.

Cute picture, Kodachrome - love the guy with the knife and the guy with the glowing eyes. Odd couples.

Party chaos!

This one is simply wonderful through the viewer, the light is gorgeous, not well translated through the scan.

But this one is my favourite. Didn't scan nicely either but you really feel like you're gathered in this kitchen along with these folks, the sound of clinking and conversation, the smell of cooking food, the heat from the oven - wonderful.

Classy ladies.

Got a bit of turmoil at the moment, my uncle is on his way out of this mess on earth. Seeing my grandma and ma in full-blown mother mode certainly makes me appreciate the efforts people who love each other will put in when the shit hits the fan. Here's to classy dames.

Meet Beatrice Jones.

This one marked simply, "Senior Citizens"

Aug '62, Kodachrome. Writing almost impossible to read, I think it says, "Gielze Crosby. Gen and Mike on Lurlne 1962 Home bum." Yeah - that's for sure what it says.

Okimoto, Mr. Takao 03/1958 Kodachrome

She looks like a firecracker, doesn't she? No writing on the slide, Kodachrome, Dec '73.

Pepsi Party!

Hey kids, I scanned a few interesting slides today so I can have a few in the bag to post over the next few days, all from a randomly chosen box of gems. These three will spur your imaginations to run wild. Wild! Imagine how much fun this Pepsi party from 1963 must have been! They had records and chairs and cigarettes...

Come, let's transport ourselves back to that yawn-filled event:

First, they sat (and nearly fell asleep, eh there, girl in blue?)

Then the strippers showed up (and put on jackets and hats... ooooo!)

Then Midge started making crank calls and Liz changed the record. Weee.

Actually, they're a cute triptych. All Ektachrome, oddly enough the slide with the girls sitting is dated Jan 64 and the other two are Dec 63 - a weird anomaly surely since they're obviously from the same wild night. I do love finding a series of three or four from the same evening, it truly is like dropping in on someone's life.

For the love of dirt.

Spring is in the air and today I'm finally getting around to starting some plants, but before I could get out the door, Mr. Mailman (or Mr. Maleman as I like to call him) came strutting up my steps with a big package in his hands. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Here's what it was:

Not the package you were expecting?

Aw it's so good! Look at the sun bouncing off those happy leaves! Look at that fabulous dirt! It occurred to me that I certainly have a 'thing' for autochromes that feature dirt. I think the graininess of the format is particularly flattering to texture. It also helps that the three 'dirty' autochromes I have are all much larger than most of my others; as far as I'm concerned, the bigger the better when it comes to autochromes (the motion of the ocean is only a detriment).

You can almost smell those flowers, non?

But this one still reigns supreme for nice soil: it's a very old one and the colour is still vibrant for it's age, it's giant sized, and the dirt looks magnificent. Gaze away:

You should come over and see this one under the loupe - it's amazing.

Keep your eyes peeled for dirty autochromes! They have an inflated value at the moment. Happy filthing!

More Weird Film Cells!

UPDATED! From Rosita (1923) starring good old Mary Pickford!

(thank you Myles!!)

I'd sure like to figure out what movie these cells are from. I spent an afternoon putting each little one inside a nice glass slide casing, so they're a little easier to scan. These are the ones I like best, I also like how you can see where the sprockets have worn the perforations:

I don't know what's going on here. None of the other cells give any clues!

Just like my room!

I did a cleanup job on these two to take out the specks. See Mmm Coffee!

Cute stuff, right? All I know is it's a United Artists movie, something about a castle. Can anyone recognise it?

Old people, doing crazy old people things.

Hello young lovers! Sorry to have ignored you so, but I've finally got through a pretty major career shift so I can now return to my duties as your faithful curator! Although I have spent today playing with my images (see? Mmm Coffee), it's too beautiful out and I need to take some air - so we're going to blast through some of the fresh slides. I had a hell of a time with the scanner today, these images are mostly from dark community halls where old people do strange things, so appologies for the scattered quality. Let's see what the magic lantern has for us today... well well! It's Kodachrome from February 1965!

Old man Highpants misses Hawaii so much he buttoned his shirt wrong.

Awww. It isn't always fun to dress up.

Martha stole the curtains again.

Terry went everywhere with her voodoo doll.

Then he butchered her right there for pretending to be Japanese.

She tore the scalp right off a hobo for this costume.

The uniform made him want to be a topper for once. Dave couldn't sit for days.

No YOU be the chinaman this time, I want to be the faded whore.

Sure! A cheap mask will totally compliment that gown.

They had some great sex later.

Best costume of the night - lesbian newlyweds!

OK folks, I have some good stuff on the horizon, stayed tuned and enjoy the weather!

Swarthmore Football, 1963.

Sometimes in a girl's life, she has to re-install windows and has crisis after crisis at work and can't do the things she really wants to do like scan slides. But then, with a little perseverance and few free minutes, she can get back to those slides and finally share some gems. Check out these fabulous fifteen, from a beautiful fall day in Pennsylvania, 1963. No wonder americans love football so much!

Kodachrome, in the order they were taken:

The donkey is amazing, isn't it? Just a fantastic shot. I love S-Girl's hair and enthusiasm too. Here's two more from a different day:

GOOOOOOOO COLOUR PHOTOS! YEAHHHH!