The Olden Days

This is my great grandfather. Herman Emmett.

My father has always been a little strange about photograph negatives. "Oh keep those! Don't throw those out!" To me they were annoying pieces of plastic that junked up my drawers.

As the digital age came into play I started to notice that people don't print photos any more. (I purposely take time out of the month to order prints from Kodak or Shutterfly so that I have a hard copy). I can't even take them to a store.... because they barely exist anymore. I do this because you never never know when a computer might crash and all those photos and memories are gone with a single click.

So my father always had the best cameras, took photographs, and even had a dark room at one time. But like most people; he whored himself out to the digital age- and threw away all of his dark room materials claiming that they "were out of date"... and what kind of idiot would bother to take the time when you have photoshop?. This is not word for word and I am exaggerating a bit...yet, bottom line... he is a digital kind of fella' now.

Because he used to print his own photographs there would be miles of negatives hanging around that never made it to paper. Yes, I agree he should have taken them to a photo store to get printed. OR at least kept the negative sheets. Some made it, and some didn't.... in a metal box sits tiny yellowed envelopes of negatives... forgotten... for you never to see.... or. wait. They have arisen! My father has rescued them from their tomb... all because.... he came across a 15 year old negative processor. A box that digitizes negatives! It's like taking a record and making it into an MP3.

Records give off better sound- if you don't know that your dumb. (Don't throw out your record player or your records! ) And if you take a look you will see that old photographs do the same. These photographs are so iconic of an age, the 50's and 70's. I don't even need to tell you what decade it was... you can just tell.

Will we one day look back at photographs of us like this when we are in our 70's and think... "That was a good time?" I personally think not.

Because the grid will go down, and we will be living in caves eating each other in the zombie Apocalypse, and there wont be a photograph to be seen because we used it as toilet paper. No photographs anywhere... because they were all on facebook and blogger.
Its sad... so sad.

Anyway, Enjoy a few of my favorite photographs.
They are classics... not only in history, but of an era and a hobby called Photography. Welcome to the light little negatives, you shine brightly amongst us, not only in our hearts, but in our memories too.

This is my grandmother with my aunt Julia (the cat lover)

My grandmother with my Aunt Temple

My grandfather with my aunt Julia (the cat lover)

My dad with my brothers and Bo the dog in Canada.

My dad with my brothers.

My mother talking to my aunt Temple and Aunt Julia.

My mother with my brothers.

My mom with my cousin Mathew

Left to right. My brother, my cousin Natalie, My mom and my Dad, back when things were great! (Before me)