Archaeology at Home or Jackpot: I found the negatives

one of my favorite shots from your archive!
charjohncarter said:
One from my dad, 1938.

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Change is so much easier to recognize at a distance.

healyzh said:
You only have to go to the 80's for things to start looking quite different. Once you get back to the 70's, it was much different world. I find it interesting you can tell which decade a lot of photo's from probably the 20's through the 80's were simply by how people were dressed, and how they wore their hair. How true is that today? I can't decide if I simply ignore such things now, or if there really has been that little change the last 20 years.
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"Leg of mutton sleeves?" Wow, there's so much knowledge on RFF.

Muggins said:
Michael,

I think your date is spot on - the "leg of mutton" sleeves on the ladies dresses are classic late 1890s fashions (to be honest, they're the only fashion I can reliably date - I can guess others, but those sleeves are just too distinctive to miss).

Is it me, or do a number of the heads not quite match the bodies? If that is the case, I wonder if not everyone could get to the studio together, and the latecomers were photographed separately and pasted in? I've not previously seen it in family photos, but I've seen it in many sports team photos from the 1920s and 1930s.

I've got a number of scans of my great-grandfather's quarter-plate negs from around 1910, and also some print scans largely of country houses around 1910-1920, as well as a WW1 hospital and its inmates. However, I just don't think I have the time to put many up here - there were THIRTEEN albums of the latter, and I was pretty sick of them by the time I finished...

Adrian

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Bob, thanks.

That organizational skill of yours is no doubt a key difference between a rank amateur like myself and someone who earns a living at this. I'm embarrassed to admit that these negatives were "hiding" in plain sight almost right under my nose. In glassine sheets. Now everything is going to be labeled and filed safely.

My father had hundreds of rolls in shoe boxes. Hopefully he kept them out of the basement and still has them somewhere safe.

sepiareverb said:
Great to see the NY I lived in Rob. I was there 82 - 90.

I'd not have to do much digging to find negatives- all mine are filed in numerical order starting in 1980, those from before that are in a couple of boxes, though I do have a box of negatives from my grandparents house that I've not gotten to conserving yet.
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Keith, the way around this is for everyone like you, Michael Markey, charjohncarter, etc., etc. who has some ancient images they've unearthed to start a thread of their own. Perhaps if all stick the word "archival" or the word "archaeology" into the title, the thing will develop enough inertia to change Stephen's mind. If we can't do that, then maybe he's right. If we can do it, maybe he'll take notice.

Keith said:
As a matter of interest I PM'd Stephen last night politely asking about the possibility of a sub forum for these sorts of archival threads:





Disappointing response! :(
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Thanks Rob for starting this thread. And the rest who are generous enough to open up their family archives. Much appreciated.

Here're some scans from my dad who shot all these with a Contaflex in 1963-1964 during his time in Europe. He said he shot all these with Kodachrome because he wanted to save a few pennies.

After the Contaflex was stolen, he stopped taking pictures. It was a gift from his father who he hardly saw. Sometimes I think I should hunt down a Contaflex for him again.

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One part of this I have really noticed in what both Rob and keith have done is the importance of the minor details. Many of these photographs are great as is but the window into the past, especially in some of the more mundane photos, really reinforces the beauty of photography for me.


thanks for the kick in the ass.....I have a very large box of jumbled negatives from 1985ish onward.....cant wait to dig in now :)
 
So back to the 1980s as prescribed by Rob. Panama, 1989, remember Lockerby, I had to listen on my short wave:

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