The Rejects

I thought it might be fun to do a post showing the types of slides I'm culling. Remember how I wrote several days ago that I go through each batch and discard about half of them right away? Well, here are some that didn't make the cut.

I have a bunch of slides from one person who had a terrible time aiming the camera (above). Their pictures tend to skew upward, so there's lots of sky or ceiling and the subject is squeezed into the lower third of the frame. (I've belatedly developed a fondness for this one, from 1967, which I call "Baby Contemplates Gigantic Sky." I might keep it.)

"Cleveden" (1968) -- Way too dark. There's not really any way to save an image like this. I can sometimes increase exposure and lighten shadows and make something workable but this one is beyond repair.

This one, of a ski lift in Austria in 1983, has the opposite problem -- it's too light. (And also too boring.)
 

I have several pictures of this 1982 scouting event, and they all look like this. It's almost as if someone was pointing the camera from their hip. Nice shot of someone's elbow. Is that person in the middle with the sleeping bag wearing a coonskin cap?

I have pictures from someone's African safari in 1975. I think they were taken out the window of a moving vehicle. Those brown smudges appear to be leopards.

Another person's camera just could not focus. I don't know whether this was the photographer's fault or the camera was broken, but in any case, many of their photos -- of similar events involving cars and motorcycles -- look like the one above.

This lovely 1977 photo is helpfully labeled "Park Hotel, Oban," just in case you wondered. Taken out the window of a moving vehicle, I'm thinking? (And also incredibly filthy -- I should have dusted it before I scanned it!)

I wondered what might have motivated someone to take this picture. It turns out the Park Hotel was one of two involved in a major fire that killed ten tourists in 1973. The fire was centered in an adjacent hotel, the Esplanade, but the Park's guests were evacuated. Perhaps someone passing by the scene a few years later took the picture because of that event? I believe both hotels were subsequently torn down, at least in part.

Anyway, as you can see, I have a lot of junk to go with the good photos. It's funny that people kept these slides in the first place, isn't it? Of course, they were ultimately discarded one way or another -- which is why I have them -- so maybe I'm picking through someone else's photographic trash.

I'm leaning toward throwing all of these, except the baby, in the bin. I see no earthly reason to save them.