While I don't have any photos that are expressly from Thanksgiving 1976, I thought I'd hit the pause button a little bit and take a step back in time beyond 40 years. Even though I'm moving forward and delving deep into 1977, I'm still digging into the past. In the case of this post, I'm having old negatives scanned because I don't have prints to scan. As I go though the records that I have, it's weird to find a roll of negatives without prints. Getting a print was really the only way you could look at what you took a picture of back then. The fact that I've found so many un-printed rolls of film is even more odd.
Before I could dig deeper into the mystery, I took a trip to see my mother. During the trip, she let me bring home some of her photo albums. Pretty much the only photo albums she has after the divorce. That made me a little sad to think about how things as simple and small like photos become the dividing line of a marriage. And even sadder that sharing the photos, all of the photos, wasn't easier.
But within the sadness, I found the answer to my mystery. My dad had the negatives and my mother had the prints. Not everything matched up as some prints were missing, but after so many decades, I was just happy to have what I had. And as I started sorting and labeling the digital images from the scanned negatives, the power of history struck me again.
All of those prints I was worried about scanning and carefully removing from the album were no longer a problem. Photo albums, for those that don't remember them, were the easiest way to store and organize photos back in the day. And nearly every album had thick plastic sheets that covered the photos and a cardboard page that had a glue-like substance on them to keep everything attached. Over time the "glue-like substance" became glue and the photos could not be removed without damaging them.
Modern technology saved the day as the scanned negatives became the better source for digital images. I knew time could pose a threat to printed photos but it never struck me as all that big of an issue. Until now.
An original print (not stored in a photo album) of my parents in December of 1972.
The same photo but from a digital scan of the original negatives.
Before I could dig deeper into the mystery, I took a trip to see my mother. During the trip, she let me bring home some of her photo albums. Pretty much the only photo albums she has after the divorce. That made me a little sad to think about how things as simple and small like photos become the dividing line of a marriage. And even sadder that sharing the photos, all of the photos, wasn't easier.
But within the sadness, I found the answer to my mystery. My dad had the negatives and my mother had the prints. Not everything matched up as some prints were missing, but after so many decades, I was just happy to have what I had. And as I started sorting and labeling the digital images from the scanned negatives, the power of history struck me again.
All of those prints I was worried about scanning and carefully removing from the album were no longer a problem. Photo albums, for those that don't remember them, were the easiest way to store and organize photos back in the day. And nearly every album had thick plastic sheets that covered the photos and a cardboard page that had a glue-like substance on them to keep everything attached. Over time the "glue-like substance" became glue and the photos could not be removed without damaging them.
Modern technology saved the day as the scanned negatives became the better source for digital images. I knew time could pose a threat to printed photos but it never struck me as all that big of an issue. Until now.
An original print (not stored in a photo album) of my parents in December of 1972.
The same photo but from a digital scan of the original negatives.
2 comments:
very nostalgic!
- Ashland Dave
Thanks!
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