Time Machine: Medium Format from Long Ago

[5:00 PM]

I've recently begun quick-and-dirty scanning of black & white MF shot by my uncle or with his cameras in the late 40s through the mid 60s. Most of the pictures were taken in and around Menlo Park, California - but there are a few exceptions. They are in no particular order and the captions are mostly just note taking at this point; I'm less than halfway through the project.

Technical quality of the negatives is...quaint. Cheap cameras and very slow film mean few of the images are sharp; anybody with even moderate viewing experience should be able to pick out the two frames shot with a good TLR and decent light, no sweat. Later work by my uncle using a Retina 35 with Tri-X is vastly better technically, but this primitive MF stuff has a certain other worldliness that is very intriguing to me.

Any and all comments...or even better, visceral reactions, are most welcome.

Also: if anybody can verify that frame #45 is Cold War Berlin, please do.

http://tinyurl.com/avgb3b

 

[sevo]

Cool!

#45 certainly is Cold War Berlin, but it just as certainly is not Checkpoint Charlie, as the transparent on the picture welcomes West Berlin citizens - Checkpoint Charlie was a gate for Allied diplomats and citizens only, and strictly unpassable for Germans up to the very end.

 

[bucks11]

This was so cool to scroll...

Makes me want to dig into some old negs I found in a clean-out at my Grandparents.

 

[fraley]

I like all of them -- they capture the innocence of the time.

 

[Newjerseyjohn]

really great.. really really cool

 

[marknyc]

Cool shots.

I went through Checkpoint Charlie about 30 years ago (as an allied citizen).