Photography: Rescued Memories Pt: 2
Here in this second instalment of the series (I hope there are more too) I share with you all some more images that I have scanned from the vintage films I have gathered. All seem to be from the US in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. It takes a long time to flatten out and arrange the heaps of old films I have acquired in the past few years. So this is definitely a project that I have to leave to my spare time. But it is a lovely project, looking back over the years of negatives gives me a delightful look at a world that is no more. The world sure has changed…
In this batch there are a lot of military based images. Ships, training grounds and what looks to be people horsing around with what I can only assume is loot brought back from Europe. I would really love to know where the images were taken, but that info is just not there. No EXIF files for this lot. I wonder if anyone out there recognises these?
As you can see, this chap seems to be enjoying himself with what I can only assume is something that he or a friend kept as a battle souvenir of their time in Europe. It is interesting in that this image would be seen in a very different light nowadays.
But then, there are a lot of images in this batch of a bunch of guys having fun and what looks to be getting a bit smashed. I guess they probably earned it. Judging by the images I would say it is the 50’s and people were living the high life.
There are county fairs and people enjoying road trips and all sorts. The photography was quite haphazard and not all that many of the shots actually come out, remember though, metered cameras were not really all that common and photography for everyman was just becoming a thing. But when they do come out you get to see some real Americana.
The clothes, that attitudes. The people in the US were on a high and you can really see it come through in this batch of films. Enjoying the scenery (before it was all polluted to hell or mined up etc). You can almost feel the optimism in the images.
America was just about to go through some serious changes, and this seems to be like an age of innocence (or perhaps blissful ignorance would be a better term), the calm before the storm.
I have a whole bunch more of these, and I will do my best to get through them as time permits. If you have any questions about the images, or even perhaps know anyone in them then get in touch.
Don’t forget to come and comment too.
Cheers
JCH
One time I was buying an old Olympus in a recycle shop in Hokkaido and there was an undeveloped roll of film inside. I thought “wow! maybe there are some crazy photos on this roll!” I spend the six dollar to get the roll developed and get the negs back and there is nothing on them.
Bellamy,
Can’t speak highly enough about the Pakon F135+ scanner. They were $10K scanners for minilab use. Discontinued around 2008. If you can procure one, no mounting, cutting or flattening is necessary. Don’t know if they were used in the Japanese market.
First picture shows USS noa, served between 1921 and 1944
I have a similar story with an Olympus camera from the early 50’s.
I was lucky the guy selling couldn’t get it open. It came from the U.S. and it had a roll inside , the door or should I say the base had had some corrosion due to water or moister .
I took the whole camera apart from top down to get the base off after I rolled the film back.
I developed the film which had several shots of a guy trying to figure out how to use it. Then nothing. The next day I noticed some frames at the start had a faint images on them. I scanned them and was very muched shocked. The first few images are of a temple in a Japan in a place called Uji outside of Kyoto. What the shocking thing was I knew this because six months earlier I booked a Ryokan in Uji for our trip in October and the temple is just a short walk from our Ryokan, I was planning on shooting it. So now I’m going to re shoot it with the Olympus as well.