The great French writer Guy De Maupassant once said of a woman, "she fills you to the marrow with desire." That's Tawny. Maybe you've seen her walking down the street....sitting alone at the end of the bar....or maybe her eyes have met yours for a fleeting, tantalizing moment. Maybe she's even the girl next door....but whoever she is, you know that the sight of her is an emotional experience.
Guy may be a great writer, but those words are only part of the emotional experience. Why don't we fully immerse ourselves in the scene above and complete the mood by playing the album!
The subject for this sentimental journey through time is my great Uncle Al, who oddly, and maybe ironically, looked and acted a bit like Jackie Gleason, who produced the album he's looking at. The photo was surreptitiously snapped by my dad in the late 1950s, and turned into a 5x7 print, which I've scanned for our viewing pleasure.
My Uncle Al was one tough dude, and spent some time Island hopping in the Pacific Ocean during the mid forties...
Here’s another addition to our Earl Young Storybook homes series from Charlevoix Michigan; this time we visit Boulder Manor, located on Lakeshore Drive, right across the street from Lake Michigan. Earl Young, a Realtor who enjoyed photography and architecture, designed this, and many other nearby homes mainly during the 1920s through the 50s in the storybook style, using curved …
Let’s step back once again into the Photojottings time machine, and head over to the south rim of the magnificent Grand Canyon, where we’ll find the ‘Lookout’ (now called Lookout Studio) during a late phase of construction. In this literal glass plate window in time, we can observe Mary Colter’s vision of a structure designed to emulate the natural scenery …
Ding ding, hey pal, fill ‘er up, but before you do, take a picture of me and my gal! I was photographing a home a few years ago, and noticed a large tray of slides on a table in the hobby room. I asked the homeowner if she took them, and she didn’t really say, but offered them to me …
Let's fasten our seat belts, and get ready for a ride in the photojottings time machine! Oh, and bring your jacket, it's late October and a bit chilly!
For the journey today, we'll head back about a hundred years and visit a quite, leafy neighborhood in West Roxbury, Mass. Henry A Stanley photographed the scene somewhere around 1910-1920. Detail in this century old (undated) 5x7" glass plate negative is stunning, (click image for larger size, shown here at 7000 pixels wide). Check out the gas street lights, especially the close one in the upper extreme left side; the unique street sign to the right, and what looks like an early automobile way down the road. The white blotches on the right are from the paper sleeve that stuck to the emulsion side over the years; I may try to remove it at some point, but I don't have the skill and nerve to try it right now.
The address for the house on the right is 218 Park St...
or, for our Western audience, Hi Honey, I’ll be home for Christmas…just not this Christmas.
Today’s Kodachrome slide entry was taken in war torn Korea around Christmas of 1952. The subject is a Korean Radio Tech making a call on a Voice Terminal Bay at a Chonan (later spelled Cheonon) repeater station; I actually don’t know what he’s saying here, …
There's fresh snow, so fire up your snowmobile, grab a film camera, and let's hit the trails! Not in Tucson though, darn it.
I'm still waiting for good sunny weather so I can shoot some test images with the Sony FE 24-70/2.8 GM lens. Hopefully I should have something out in a couple of days. In the mean time, I thought I'd post another Kodak moment picture; this time it's an Ektachrome slide from about 1979/80.
The subject is me, and a 1974 Raider Eagle Snowmobile. The Raider was unique in that it had twin tracks, a rear mounted engine, and padded cockpit seating; more pictures or Raiders here. Our Raider had a 440 CCW engine, electric start with a tachometer and speedometer. When the engine was tuned up properly, and on hard packed snow, It would do about 70 MPH (113kph). Some people worried about what would happen if you rolled it over being seating inside the vehicle and not really able to jump out quickly; I did that one time, and it wasn't actually a bad experience. A strong neck and the knit cap was good enough as I slid along, upside down and into a snow bank.
The Raider was a fun ride, but it had a lot of problems, mainly due to it being a low production, short run vehicle, and as a result, they never really had the time or resources to get the bugs worked out. My Grandfather bought this brand new Raider at an auction for almost nothing; they were going out of business; and shortly after that, my Dad talked my grandfather out of it, and we ended up owning it for about 5 years. I remember my last Raider ride, I think it was early winter in 1981 after a big snow, the first ride of the new season. I decided to 'drag race' my buddy in his 1970 Pontiac LeMans Sport on the street in front of our house, and as I hit about 6000 RPM on the tach, the chain came apart and flew through the fiberglas body right beside me. We ended up dragging it home behind his car, and putting it in the garage. Unfortunately, that was the last ride for me; Dad ended up fixing it and sold it shortly after.
Interesting side notes; notice the black padded 'seat' on the rear engine cover, you could carry a passenger here, where they would hang on for dear life using the little plastic hand strap just in front of the seat. Check out my orange Michigan 'safe snowmobiler' patch on my right shoulder, and the 'Coors' beer knit cap which was a typical 'helmet' back then. There's nothing like beer and snowmobiling when you're 15 years old! Also notice the hardware store 'photojottings' stickers on the side...
My Dad took this Kodachrome slide of Ray Farhner's 1932 Ford Roadster pickup 'Eclipse' probably in 1960 or 1961 in Detroit. I'm not sure what the show was called by it could be either 'NHRA' 1960, or maybe 'National Champion Custom Car Show' in 1961. Farhner went on to produce more custom cars, including a hotrod 1850s funeral coach called the Boothill Express!
This little pickup won many awards, (Grand Sweepstakes winner in NHRA 1960), and was featured in all the major car magazines of the day, including Hotrod, Car Craft, Custom Rodder and a plethora of others. It's now a legendary custom Rod that has been restored, more info here.
Notice the mirror positioned on a slant under the car showing the undercarriage; the October 1960 Car Craft magazine, (with the car on the cover); the Cadillac 'teeth' on the front grill, and the hood with a body-color spot light just visible at the bottom edge. I like the pose of the couple on the left, I think it makes the image more interesting.
The photo was taken by my dad with an Aires 35 IIIL rangefinder camera (which I still have), 45mm at F/1.9, maybe 1/15s. The image is...
