These pictures are taken from antique glass negatives or slides which have been in my family since around the turn of the last century.
They are small, around 3" x 2" and some are 2 pieces of glass sandwiched together.
I first scanned them in black and white, clarifying, enhancing and reducing damage.
But looking closer, apart from some tonal discolouration which did add interest to some images, I noticed there was actual colour, more in some than others, and they didn't look tinted but I could be wrong. So I re-scanned in colour keeping some exactly as they came out apart from damage reduction and simple enhancements, In others I played around with the colour and the information already in the image, in some cases producing a better version. I like to think!
I know that around this time photos and slides were bought as souvenirs but I'm left puzzled by the vases of lilies on the sideboard, the suburban redbrick house, the shipyards and the picture of the moon over the sea.
My family hail from Derbyshire and took an annual holiday in a picturesque part of the county. Some of the scenic ones could be from there. I'd be interested to know if anyone knows the provenance of this type of photo/slide, or even recognises any of the locations. The yachting lake, the sweet English villages, the castle ruins, the shipyards, the cliffs and seascapes and lighthouse. And I'm obviously mistaken in thinking night shots (the moon over the sea) were impossible at that time.
Any information, anyone?
They are small, around 3" x 2" and some are 2 pieces of glass sandwiched together.
I first scanned them in black and white, clarifying, enhancing and reducing damage.
But looking closer, apart from some tonal discolouration which did add interest to some images, I noticed there was actual colour, more in some than others, and they didn't look tinted but I could be wrong. So I re-scanned in colour keeping some exactly as they came out apart from damage reduction and simple enhancements, In others I played around with the colour and the information already in the image, in some cases producing a better version. I like to think!
I know that around this time photos and slides were bought as souvenirs but I'm left puzzled by the vases of lilies on the sideboard, the suburban redbrick house, the shipyards and the picture of the moon over the sea.
My family hail from Derbyshire and took an annual holiday in a picturesque part of the county. Some of the scenic ones could be from there. I'd be interested to know if anyone knows the provenance of this type of photo/slide, or even recognises any of the locations. The yachting lake, the sweet English villages, the castle ruins, the shipyards, the cliffs and seascapes and lighthouse. And I'm obviously mistaken in thinking night shots (the moon over the sea) were impossible at that time.
Any information, anyone?
One of my favourite variations I did
on what looks like a shipyard.
on what looks like a shipyard.
The moon on the sea. This would have been taken around 1910.
A dusky enhanced coastline. This slide was completely broken.
A tiled design of some variations on the first shipyard scene.
Is this the Goyt Valley in Derbyshire? The holiday destination of my family at this time. Certainly looks like it. Very little needed doing to this image once it was scanned in colour. It was all there. I just enhanced the contrast and colour. And erased the ubiquitous speckles and scratches. I know the cobalt blue speckles are some kind of degradation of the bromide, but I left some in. It works.
This could be Liverpool. Or the Manchester ship canal. Which would be closer, geographically, to members of my family at that time.
Wish I knew where these car free places were. We wouldn't see this now.
A church in the distance? Or yachts?
This is scanned in the wrong way round but it gave it a softness it didn't otherwise have.
No idea where these ruins are.
So arcadian and English.
Vases of lilies on a sideboard. Would this have been taken as a souvenir photo? When only 3" x2" in size?
A shipyard it seems.
A sea and ship combo. Lots of variations of sepia and duskiness.
A school?
Ships, shipyards and yachts. All black and white (there was no colour evident in the yacht pictures), except for the small amount of sepia in the small ship, bottom left. There was some colour in the middle picture but it's b+w here for the sake of uniformity.
Seascapes.
Unknown lighthouse.
A montage including pictures of my mother, grandmother and great grandmother (with some of her children - or grandchildren?? The clothes are misleading to our modern eye. She actually looks quite young, facially). Some taken in the Goyt Valley in Derbyshire.
