Today's photos are a blast from the past -- I took them back in 1978 or so, using my dad's camera. I know I've written about this before, but he's the one who introduced me to photography and we occasionally went out in the yard with his Minolta and took pictures. On this particular day, I believe, we took a whole roll of film, including shots of his geese and a mushroom and some other stuff, but these are the only two shots I still have and as far as I know the only ones that still exist. The negatives vanished years ago.
I never had these negatives -- my dad kept them, and I remember seeing them in his darkroom at some point, but after he died I tried to find them and had no luck. Over the years, in fits of cleaning, I've thrown away other negatives from various photo projects, and without fail I now wish I hadn't. Negatives don't take up much room, after all.
For years I kept negatives from a photo class I took in the 8th grade, as well as negatives from college that I took on an outing to Caladesi Island for the school paper, and a photo walk I took in downtown Tampa in the mid-'80s. I threw all of them out about 20 years ago. I could kick myself for it now. I mean, I don't think any of the images were prize winners, but I'd love to see them again (and maybe blog them!).
Oh well. Live and learn.
These are pears in my dad's yard. When he first bought his property north of Tampa, it included some fruit trees that had been planted by the previous owner. I don't think we ever ate these pears, at least not that I remember. Up top, those are elephant ears, a type of taro that was introduced to peninsular Florida and, like so many exotic species, now runs amok there.
Anyway, there's not much interesting going on around here. I had a super-busy day yesterday. I realized with horror a few days ago that the library was WAY behind on collecting long-overdue materials -- when I ran a report listing books overdue more than a month, it came to 18 pages! With only about six weeks left in the school year! Gasp!
So I spent the last two days, pretty much every spare moment, churning out personalized e-mails to the parents of all the offending students -- about 50 altogether. Hopefully this week we'll see some of that backlog cleared up.
I guess just as I've let slip the task of writing to parents, the kids have let slip their obligation to return books. With our crazy school year -- lockdowns, weeks of distance learning, that kind of thing -- it's no wonder they've lost track of stuff. I always try to get all books back or accounts settled by the end of the school year, but this year, that might be optimistic.
I know what you mean about tossing negatives. I tossed most, kept others for no apparent reason. Yesterday I opened a file folder to find a bunch of negatives along with the original photos (all of which have already been scanned at hi-res). You have such a long history with photography. Too bad you don't have all the old photos. It's nice to see these two.
ReplyDeleteWell, as I said, I don't think those old pics were terrific. I clearly didn't think much of them because I didn't save them, with the exception of these two!
DeleteTo get the library books back, I suggest that you hire a Nazi uniform and paint a little paintbrush moustache above your top lip. Then simply walk into every classroom in the school and speak loudly in a German accent "YOU VILL BRING ALL LIBRARY BOOKS BACK OR I VILL INVADE POLAND!"
ReplyDeleteTried it. Didn't work.
DeleteNice photos.
ReplyDeleteReminding me that we need a neg and slide scanner.....
I have a negative scanner and I find that I get much better results when I have them done professionally. If you're just doing a few select shots, I'd recommend that route.
DeleteThey are rather good photos. I think we've all rid ourselves of things we wished we had kept, and kept things we should not have. I wonder if our public libraries still fine people for overdue books. I expect it is mostly threat and bluff.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I guess we all throw away the wrong stuff sometimes. I think public libraries DO issue fines. As a school library, though, we do not.
DeleteI Clearly Remember Thinking How Slides And Negatives Don't Take Up All That Much Room - Ha - There Is About 2,000 Photos On My Phone Right Now - Oh, The Digital World - Be Well Brother Reed - Be Well
ReplyDeleteCheers
Yeah, digital photos proliferate like crazy because they're unlimited and free!
DeleteWhy did you have to write personalized e-mails to each family? Couldn't you have a form e-mail that you could just add the name of the book(s) that needed to be returned to? Well, your way is probably more effective.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what sort of pears those were. Were they the hard sand pears as we call them?
I say basically the same thing in each one, but I find that it's actually easier to just write them individually, and that way I don't have to worry about changing genders and singular/plural (depending on whether they have one book or several), not to mention names. It guarantees that I get everything right. I don't know what kind of pears those were! As I said, I never ate them, but I think they were edible.
DeleteMy father is an avid photographer and has kept every negative of every photo he's ever taken, even the ones he deems awful. Of course, now with everything digital that's all over ...
ReplyDeleteBut it's cool that he kept them all! I wish I had, in retrospect, even if just to look back at them and realize how bad they were!
DeleteI love and hate the idea of collecting overdue materials. I would love running the report, & sending out the emails, and I would love getting the books back, but the in between of having to follow up and actually interact with people, not so much!
ReplyDeleteYeah, my nightmare is having to call people personally. Fortunately it rarely comes to that.
DeleteI agree that with this year's crazy schedule, your work may be a bit more difficult. Hopefully, the kids will come through and return all their books. Enjoy your day, hugs, Edna B.
ReplyDeleteI will let you know how it goes!
DeleteYou have your work cut out for you getting those books back by the end of term. I agree, it's been a very strange year for both students and teachers.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to look around and see if I still have any negatives. I think most were tossed out but I may still have a few.
Well, if you don't need to make copies of the pictures, you probably don't need the negatives. That's really all they're good for.
DeleteLovely memory of your father, and your introduction to photography.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he and I didn't have a lot of common interests, but this was one!
DeleteWhen my Mom died, my Dad dumped all of their photos and slides (in the slide carriers) on me. Ultimately, after we moved out of the house with the giant basement we threw out all photos of people we didn't know. Later the slides went over the side, as well. I'd like to have some of them of when I was a little kid, but they're long gone.
ReplyDeleteIt can be a lot of stuff to manage, for sure. My mom has tons of pictures in albums and I have no idea what we'll do with all that stuff when the time comes.
Deletemy parents took most of the pictures of us growing up (and their vacations away) on slide film and now and then dad would set up the screen and projector. like Allison above, all those old slides went to my sister after both parents died. Pam finally wanted to do something about them she investigated having them digitized, too expensive. our brother bought a set up for her to do it, too complicated and time consuming. she tried to foist them off on brother and I. neither of us cared enough and so they been trashed. It's not that I don't have interest in seeing some of them from us kids growing up but I just don't have enough interest to do the work of sorting through them or the cost of digitizing them.
ReplyDeletebut I do like that picture of the elephant ears. we had giant ones at the city house and my sister has them at her old house here and I finally dug some up and planted them at my house.
DeleteIt can definitely be time-consuming to sort through and manage old pictures. For me it's worth it, but obviously not everyone agrees!
DeleteThat a lot of pages for an overdue list! Hopefully, they will all come back now that you have sent the reminders out. Then you will have piles and piles of books to shelve - a nice project for when school gets out. Do you work all summer?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm a ten-month employee, so I have mid-June through mid-August off.
DeleteEmpathizing! i just realized that I had , in a cleaning frenzy, tossed some photos that i should not have tossed! Happens nearly every time I get rid of something! Anyway, I appreciate the pear photo , looks more like an avocado.
ReplyDeleteOh no! That's the worst -- when you throw something out you didn't mean to. Oh well. It's just stuff, right?
DeleteI like black and white photos - there's just something about them. It's nice you had an interest in photography in common with your dad.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and he even helped me process and print pictures, which I never do now. But it was fun at the time!
DeleteIt's funny -- I just cleaned out a closet and discovered some prints and negatives from a documentary photography class I took in college (I went to UNC in Chapel Hill, but this class was at Duke in their documentary photography department). It was so weird to look through them, and I'm wondering what to do with them. I think seeing yours and hearing your regret at throwing them out makes me want to maybe print my negatives? What do you think? And by the way, your prints are beautiful with those shadows and light. I miss black and white photography so little manipulated --
ReplyDeleteI would say if you have any doubt at all, keep them! And yes, print them, or maybe scan them. And then blog them! :)
DeleteI had some pictures I took for a college photography class for many years, and several of them were of an old friend who served as my model. I eventually mailed the shots to her!