"My God, I only saw him later, when he was worn down by life. Look at him. He has his whole life in front of him, and I'm not even a glint in his eye. What do I say to him?"
From a set of 23 rolls of 35mm b&w film totaling 678 frames. These rolls were unexpectedly found uncut, tightly rolled, and stored inside their original Kodak metal canisters at my childhood home. We were emptying and cleaning the house in preparation for its sale. We're guessing those canisters sat unopened and untouched for over 50 years.
After some research, we believe this frame was made in Vienna, Austria at the Prater amusement park in 1953. My late dad (in front) would have been in the US Army and 22 years old at the time. The couple in back were my parent's best friends. The friend was an Army cook. My mom, the photographer for this frame and now 85, has seen this picture and remembers it as the best time of her life.
This is awesome. A nice photo, and even more incredible keepsake. I remember finding a photo of my young father, taken in the Army in the 1920's. It was an amazing sense of contact. Sharing memories across miles and generations is one of the rewarding things about photography!
The power of photography. Good on you for paying so much attention to your family history. I will take inspiration from you when I dive into the box of negatives my late grandfather produced in his lifetime...
A few years ago my mother gave my brother, my sister and I each a cigar box with some letters that our dad sent to his mother from Europe during World War II. At the time my own son was in Iraq and Afghanistan courtesy of the US Army. I always marveled at how many weeks or even months transpired between him writing a letter and his mother receiving it, while in the 2000's my son could send an email from the end of the earth and I could read it a few seconds later. Anyway, at the bottom of my box I found some 6x7 negatives of him in fatigues during basic training, and some in his Class A's in some city somewhere. Those negatives, and the prints that I was able to make from them, are some of my most prized possessions. Thanks for sharing this, Ken.
How good it is for your mother that you are able to bring back the great memories. My God,that quote is so true. I have a picture of my father at 16, so alive and strong. Not as I knew him in his 40's and 50's before he died so young.
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