My compulsion to rescue old slides from oblivion extends especially to those that are damaged or deteriorating. Why this is, I have no idea. My dad had a very strong rescue impulse, mostly where animals and children were concerned. I have the same impulse for animals, houseplants and old pictures (and other stuff too). I guess it's hereditary.
Anyway, here are some examples of slides I got at Camden Market that needed some extra help.
Let's take the ones above on the right, both from 1978. I found them on the concrete floor beneath the slide box in the shop I was visiting, and they'd been trampled and begrimed and dampened by water from somewhere. I asked the proprietor if I could have them for free and he said yes.
I could tell they were landscapes, but it wasn't until I got them home, cleaned them carefully with a barely moist Q-tip, let them dry out and had them scanned that I could see the images:
Now let's look at the slide on the left in the top photo. It bears no date, it's an unconventional size and it's very dark. I can barely see through it when I hold it up to the light. Only when I point my slide viewer directly into the sun can I make out this image:
As you can see, the slide is also incredibly discolored. Sometimes slide film just doesn't age well, perhaps because of lousy processing.
I had it scanned, and although the woman at the scanning shop assured me she could cope with the unusual square format, what I got was a cropped version of the photo. I color-corrected it and wound up with this:
Looks like some kind of panto, or a children's theatre production. Peter Pan, maybe? The girl and the "mouse" look skeptical; the other two are totally into it. I wish I had the full frame, but maybe I can get that in a future scan.
Finally, there's this slide:
I'm holding it against the sky so you can see how dark it is. It's from 1968, and as you can see it's labeled "Austria -- Town of Glass Manufacture."
Here's the uncorrected scanned version:
I did some Googling and figured out this is the town of Rattenberg, which apparently is indeed known for its glass. Here's the corrected version, which I made into a black-and-white image because the color was so weak and wonky:
It can be a challenge to salvage pictures that are near death, but I enjoy it!
31 comments:
This is all a bit magical and must be so much fun to do. Amazing how little has changed in Rattenberg... except for restoration and painting.
The pictures are great, this is an excellent hobby for you.
Finding Vivian Maier. Did you ever watch it on Netflix?
Yet again, you are a great rescuer of things others would even think twice about. I raise my glass to you.
I actually really love that first bit of countryside.
You really have a talent for bringing out the best of these odd slides! Restoring them to what they should have been is pretty amazing!
There's something melancholy about an empty bench in a garden.
I suppose your desire to save old photos is not unlike the way I feel when I see an old doll who, to my eyes, needs to be brought home and given a better life.
Places in Europe don't change much over the decades, do they?
I enjoy sleuthing old photos. Perhaps I have some sort of detective gene in me. I searched for the one with the lone bench in google photo search and evidently Google's algorithm isn't bench friendly. Only one picture out of dozens I scrolled through actually had a bench. The rest were of lawns with shrubbery.
I am shocked, Steve. The children? The Nutcracker! Uncle Drosselmeyer gave the game away!
I agree with Ed that this hobby brings out the detective in a person! I can see how one might end up spending hours perfecting the photo and then searching for clues about the location or people. Great fun, Steve! Good job!
Great slide rescues, Steve. I love how the color-corrected edit on that slide turned out.
Good job rescuing these slides. I'm impressed at how great you made these look, especially the one of the four kids. I love that scene in the damaged slide. It's the kind of scene Van Gogh would paint.
I prefer the old view of that street in Rattenberg, the new and improved version of Rattenberg on google, without sidewalks, is just ugly.
I have tons of old slides too, it seems it was the thing to do in the sixties. I wonder if my parents every looked at them more than once. My parents lived in Europe for five years in the sixties and I have no idea of where the slides were taken sadly.
Scener from someone's life forgotten and discarded, and yet only 50 years ago.
That one little dude looks like the Phantom (from The Opera). Fun!
We've rescued numerous dogs over the years, so I guess I have that instinct to a certain extent.
I actually quite like that first landscape photo. I think it's nicely composed.
The first photo is kind of painterly, it has a soothing quality.
Bad A$$
Cheers
I love that top landscape! The current place isn't very colorful to start with so black and white was an appropriate choice.
I'm glad you went to all that trouble, because the results are so interesting. The first image is a very good composition. I wonder if it was a study for a painting. Anyway thank you. These are great.
"Hi there! And welcome to another edition of 'Picture Rescue' with me your genial host, Stephen G. Reed (applause) Tonight we'll be looking at some racy slides that were found in a dumpster round the back of Emma Thompson's designer home in exclusive West Hampstead. You're not going to believe what was uncovered!"
The third photo looks familiar
That's an admirable hobby, Stephen.
That is some serious rescue work you did here. I actually think the two landscapes are lovely, they’d make wonderful paintings by say, Van Gogh. The trees in the top one are so perfectly balanced to my eye, the cluster on the top right, and that single one lower down, mid path. I imagine sitting under the sky with an easel and oils to paint that landscape. The picture of the costumed kids really came a long way, but I agree it loses something without the kid in the red tights’ pointed toe. The black and white street scene is evocative too. Reminds me of a scene from episode 1 of Outlander. All in all, fascinating stuff!
The B&W rendering of the town in Austria suits it very well and the detail is much clearer. I do like the first landscape picture. It reminds me of a farm scene, but I don't see any barns or outbuildings in that shot. They may be beyond the horizon . . . or they may not exist except in my imagination :)
Mitchell: It IS very fun! I think a lot of those European communities have very strict laws protecting their historic districts.
River: I do enjoy it!
Rachel: Absolutely! Vivian Maier's story is fascinating. Nothing I've found rises to her level but it's kind of the same idea.
Caro: I raise mine back! Cheers! :)
Debby: Several people responded positively to that picture, which just shows how subjective art appreciation is.
Marcia: I really love the challenge.
Bob: It's true. And that one seems a little precarious with that forward pitch on the slope.
Ms Moon: Yes, it's probably similar -- we're both responding to deep inner aspects of our identity.
Ed: I've searched several of the slides through Google in case they've been previously scanned, but nothing has turned up.
Debby: Is it?! I've even seen the Nutcracker but I don't remember enough about it, I guess!
Ellen D: Yes! It's kind of like solving a mystery, or a series of mysteries.
Robin: Sometimes it's really hard to get a decent-looking picture out of a deteriorated slide.
Sharon: It IS kind of impressionist, isn't it? I didn't really see that before.
Pixie: Well, "ugly" might be an overstatement. :) I bet you could figure out the locations of your slides pretty easily. Google image search is your friend!
Tasker: Not even that long ago in some cases! At least one of the pictures I bought is only about 15 years old.
Bug: It's the ruffles. :)
Kelly: My dad once went to the pound to try to find his own missing dog, succeeded, and wound up adopting two or three more!
Allison: It's true, it is very impressionist. I didn't really see that in it before.
Padre: Thank$!
Margaret: Yeah, in color, the whole picture looked a sort of sickly yellow-green.
Boud: I wonder! Now I'm thinking I need to go back and look through that box for more.
YP: I think our Emma is way too busy to be taking slide photos!
John: You think? Maybe just reminiscent of lots of empty-bench pictures?
Catalyst: Admirable or not, it's a lot of fun for me! (And hopefully for you and my other readers.)
37P: Thanks for the deeper look at that landscape painting. I'm seeing it in a new way thanks to all of you.
Jenny-O: I assume that IS a farm of some kind, but who knows?
A fascinating challenge
They did a good job with the restoration! That's really a challenge. I love that you preserve.
I love the slides; I particularly like looking at the before and after and the original slides and what certain places look like today. It's really amazing to see all the changes from then to now.
My sister has or did have tons of old slides. I will ask her if she still has them and if she does and does not want them I will contact you privately and send them to you and you can have tons of fun with them.
Back in the late 70's she turned in a roll of film to be developed and when she got the photos back and was looking thru them, she was shocked to see that someone had taken a picture of Elvis Presley getting out of a limousine. She still has the picture, I think. She did take it back into the drug store and showed it to the developer, but they could not find the mistake and said she must not have remembered taking the picture. She was Elvis crazy back then so it is something that she would have remembered.
The name of the drug store was Eckerd's. Do you remember that store? Of course, you might not have had one in Florida, but it was a big deal in our small Texas town at the time.
It was like a great five and dime only a few cents more expensive, but it was one of my favorite places to go. Lots of reasonable costume jewelry and make up perfect for a teenage girl at the time lol.
Oh I forgot to mention the slide with the kids and when I read Peter Pan it was like a light bulb moment. My first thought was it was kids getting ready to go trick or treating in their costumes and someone took a picture of them before they left to go out, but your sense of being able to name the event was much more accurate than mine.
Isn't it funny that a person can see the exact same photograph and come to different conclusions?
I loved the one of the solitary bench as well. It has a sad feel to it, like it was just waiting and waiting for someone, anyone to just sit there for a while. I would love to know the story of the bench and how it got there and where it was.
Maybe someone still has fond memories of sitting there! At least I would like to think so.
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