Saved By Old Times

Every so often while I’m doing the dishes, the sunlight will come in at just the right angle, and I’ll be reminded of this photograph (ca. 1945) that my family discovered a few years ago:

One day around Christmas 2008, my dad came across a box of old slides and films; that night we set up our antiquated projectors and had ourselves a good old fashioned slideshow. I believe (or at least we think) many of these photos were taken by his father, A. Herbert Campbell, some time in the 40’s and 50’s. (For the sake of our family history, I should probably revisit these and record the actual dates and people instead of just guessing.)

I took the lo-fi route and captured a few of my favorite projected photos with my DSLR while the slideshow was ongoing. There are certainly better ways to preserve old photos, but I really like how these turned out. This one featured three of my favorite things: a cat, an Adirondack chair, and a tree, all neatly arranged into thirds:

This one was badly washed out, but I loved the ethereal quality so much that I came back to San Francisco and attempted to create a painting based on the photograph. (The result wasn’t good enough to include here, but one can find it over on the blog that I share with Candice.) I believe that’s my grandmother, Helen, on the left, with A. Herbert to the right:

Here’s my Uncle Tom. I never got to meet him, but from all the stories he seemed like a swell guy:

I think my Aunt Lupie (Helen to the rest of the world) identified herself in this one. I love the wagon and the barn door and the blue sky and the headscarf and just about everything:

Mmm, mmmilk. And an interesting angle here:

Another ghostly visage, unidentified:

Likewise, here. I think I just found my next album cover: