Old Photos

I miss 35 mm so, so much. And yes, I could shoot in film if I wanted, but it's a real pain to get it developed and to print it. The cost is especially prohibitive. Grr.

I think what I love about film cameras are 1 - the click of the shutter 2 - the way pictures look like what I was looking at. No, they don't look *exactly* like what I was looking at, obviously there are constraints (in color reproduction especially), constructions when you print (how dark is it, how white, should I lighten that corner?), but for the most part the chemical process of molecules absorbing reflected protons gets you something very like the picture in your head.

And furthermore, it's easy to understand exactly what is happening at each step of the process (light bounces off object, light hits photo-absorbing film, chemicals slough off the parts of the film where photons were absorbed, light passes through variably dense film and hits photo absorbing paper, chemicals darken paper accordingly). My understanding of a digital camera is something like the following - I own a magic box with an evil demon inside, light goes in and the demon puts a picture out that looks kinda like the light that goes in.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I recently scanned a number of old photos, some in color some in black and white. The quality is terrible, but at least they are, in a way, safe from cats and flooding. Here are a few of my favorites -

Under a banyon tree.
Family in an Adirondack river.
Rain in Harvard Square.
A game of solitaire in a cabin.
Little birds!
Little green things.