I have this stack of faded photos I was going to post in a series, but I got distracted, so before I go back to faded photo land, an Easter themed photograph.
Written on the back, "Easter 1954 Mike-6 1/2 yrs. Linda-4 1/2 yrs. Green dress, white shoes, socks, purse & gloves. Blue suit, brown shoes, white shirt and brown bow tie." I guess the parents were worried that they wouldn't remember what their children were wearing.
Continuing with this brief series of faded, old photos. Anyway, I buy the occasional lot of photos, usually an envelope, where I want a couple of photos and end up with a few extras. This is one of those extras, and like the next couple I'm going to publish, it was printed on cut up real photo postcard stock.
It looks like a faded picnic with a sign off to the right that says, "RUMFORD." Did the Rumford clan reserve a table in the local park? Probably.
I buy a fair number of photos as lots. I'll buy an envelope, usually to get two or three prints, and while many of them are interesting, I wouldn't buy them as a stand-alone purchase. Anyway, I have a few faded prints that have been sitting in boxes, and not in the queue for publication. What fascinates me about fading prints is the symbolism of people and history disappearing in plain sight.
That's the name that's written on the back of this wallet sized photo. Whenever I have a name on a photo, I do a quick Google search just in case I can find something out there. I found two Ethel Rabel's, one married in 1907, and since it was rare for women to keep their maiden names back then, well, it's possible, but unlikely that the Ethel Raebel from Wisconsin is the woman in this picture. The other Ethel Raebel, from South Dakota was married in 1940. Anyway, the hair and clothes look like they could be from the 1930s, so a possibility.
This is a fairly small print, and when I just looked at it, I wondered what the woman on the left was holding. Then I scanned it and blew it up and got a good look. It's the family dog.
As a former professional black & white photo printer, I can say that black marks on a print are where white light is getting through the negative, and white is where light is being blocked. It looks like there were some slashes in the negative's emulsion, and the white part on the "4" and that squiggly white line below the other black slash is where bits of the emulsion is still attached to the neg, just not where it should be.
