After Helen’s mother, Ruth Reed Boorman, passed away we found a box of negatives in her apartment. My hands trembled as I picked it up. They range in age from 1918 up into the 1970s. I have scanned in many of them (many more to go) and have placed over 4,000 images from this collection up in my Picasa albums. Each album holds 1,000 images and I have now started on album 5. It is a treasure trove of a photographic record of the Boorman and Reed family and the times. Even if you do not know the people it is great record on how they lived (very poor) and how they dressed and their activities. Of course I am on the hunt for any photos of Helen and I have found a few. (That will be a separate album) They had 5 kids so she spread the photo taking around of the family. There are many photos we have never seen before. Ruth had three favorite subjects, animals (lousy photos, too far away, blurred, but she could not pass up a dog or a deer or a cat or a pig), people (some great history recorded of family and their activities) and scenery in b/w. They did some travelling. Living in the Klamath Falls area they ended up at Crater Lake many times. She spent a lot of time at church camps in the 50s and DVBS (daily vacation Bible school) in Ashland so there are many photos of these activities. They were very poor but they had $ for film and processing. What a record. I have put up over 4,000 images from her box of negatives and I still have a gob to go through. Each Picasa album holds 1,000 images. I am now on the 5th album. She was one busy lady. Even though I do not know many of the people I enjoy seeing photos from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, how they lived and how they dressed and of course, the eternal search for Helen photos. I scan on a flat bed Epson 700 scanner at 1300-3000 dpi so I can get an image size of about 2-5 mgs. This allows a size that can be cropped or enlarged. I scan at full-frame and then brown tone the second scan then crop and tone the second cropped one. They stared out with “postcard” cameras then went to 620 cameras with many different sizes of negatives. Then they switched to 127 cameras. Then she switched to Kodak 126 cameras then finally to a terrible Kodak disc camera with the size of the negs equal to your little fingernail. The old stuff from 1920 is sharper than the stuff from the 70s and 80s. https://picasaweb.google/114431897981658921755/RuthBoormanBoxOfNegativeScans
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 17:07:45 +0000
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