Post Your Old Works

On Kodachrome, Japan, from about 30 years ago. Nikon FE2 and 28f2.8 AIs bought when I arrived in Kobe.

Are you trying to get me to go hunt through our storage locker?

pdeeh said:

Almost every single negative and print I ever made from 1969 to about 2000 has gone...

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Old-N-Feeble said:

Yeah, mine too....

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I'm so sorry to hear that, glad there are some good shots to share...

I'd be devastated to suffer such loss. Only my very first negatives and prints are gone, so I can't show what sucked me in in the first place. And my very early black and white 110 negatives are hit and miss. But since I started acting serious, around 1974, I have nearly everything (with some stories behind every exception).

So I should be able to help you vicariously... any requests?

MattKing said:

Are you trying to get me to go hunt through our storage locker?

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That might be a good idea anyway to ensure your images aren't being harmed in storage.

Bill Burk said:

I'm so sorry to hear that, glad there are some good shots to share...

I'd be devastated to suffer such loss. Only my very first negatives and prints are gone, so I can't show what sucked me in in the first place. And my very early black and white 110 negatives are hit and miss. But since I started acting serious, around 1974, I have nearly everything (with some stories behind every exception).

So I should be able to help you vicariously... any requests?

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The only request is to post old works you've done that are at least twenty years old. The older the better.

One my favorites...the 4x5 neg is probably from 1981, and the print (about 8x19) within two years of that. Printed on Portriga Rapid 111, lightly toned with selenium...the good old days!

Prairie Creek
Silver gelatin print

Nice one Vaughn.

Thanks, Patrick. I 'found' this panoramic looking thru my proof sheets one day in class and it started my interest in panoramics in general.

From June 1983 about 2 months after I started developing my first B&W film at home. By this time I had bought a bulk reel of FP4 and was rolling it into re-useable canisters. Ifosol2 developer. Olympus OM2n, 50mm f1.4, I'm guessing pretty close to wide open. That's my wife of 2 years at the time, 4 months pregnant and engrossed in a large jigsaw puzzle. The boy is 31 next week.

Bill Burk said:

I'm so sorry to hear that, glad there are some good shots to share...

I'd be devastated to suffer such loss.

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thanks Bill

I am very saddened that I can't see them, just to trigger memories of places and people, but they've gone and that's that.

I think I'm more interested in what I'm doing now, and despite having shot thousands and thousands of frames in "the old days" it's only in the past two years I've actually developed or printed any of my own work !

but I suppose I wish I had a few more to share in this thread.

Tony Egan said:

From June 1983 about 2 months after I started developing my first B&W film at home. By this time I had bought a bulk reel of FP4 and was rolling it into re-useable canisters. Ifosol2 developer. Olympus OM2n, 50mm f1.4, I'm guessing pretty close to wide open. That's my wife of 2 years at the time, 4 months pregnant and engrossed in a large jigsaw puzzle. The boy is 31 next week.
View attachment 97335

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Love this one . Wife, and the books in the background, and the story .

The oldest image i could find on line. A still life shot 8x10 printed platinum in +- 1987

Here's one I took in 1983. This waterfall is a fairly short hike from the parking area near Trail #13 at Bonito Lake Park near Ruidoso, NM. It's the oldest image I have remaining of my old works and it's just a low resolution scan of the print. This is the type of work I once loved to do. It's been so long I can't even remember what it felt like to make similar images... not that it's anything special but I like it well enough.

Camera was a Horseman 985 VH-R with 6x7cm roll film holder and 105mm Topcor lens. I use the GG for composition and focus, of course. I used a fairly deep yellow-green filter to try and lighten the foliage but it probably made little difference. The front tripod leg was fully extended and submerged in the water at the edge of the shallow little pond. Film was either Agfapan 25 or 100 ISO (rated at approximated half box speed) and developer was Rodinal at 1:50 or 1:100. Film was exposed and developed to print best after selenium toning to straighten and lengthen the H&D curve. The print was also selenium toned to deepen the blacks without blocking the shadows. The print toning also neutralized the olive green hue of Ilford Gallery DW fiber Grade 3. I loved this paper's tonal range and depth but hated that greenish tint. Happily, it toned beautifully and evenly in selenium to a lovely plumb-brown.

It was an overcast and very calm quiet day. I sat there for quite awhile after taking that image to drink in the beauty of that moment.

This was one of the very last images I ever took for my own edification. After that, the girlfriend and later wife became quite intolerant of my occasional (fairly rare and quick) photo side excursions. I should have kept the photo gear and dumped the girl. Silly youthful foolishness...



The rock on the lower right always bothered me but there was no way to crop it out without losing too much of the pool and/or ruining balance and composition.

Here are a couple 16x20 prints from 4x5 of local locales. Both are from the mid 1980's.
Manila Dunes, Humboldt County, and
Oaks, Highway 299, Humboldt County

this post should be renamed, come on guys, the '80s is not old ... is it?

by the way some amazing work here

PhotoBob said:

this post should be renamed, come on guys, the '80s is not old ... is it?

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I would have stated older but all my stuff from when I was a teen is long gone. The oldest image I have is from when I was twenty-two and there's just one that old... thirty-one years ago (post #41).

Patrick Robert James said:

... I know this was printed on Agfa Portriga because of all the stippling in the scan...

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I so miss this paper.

For those of you who have lost your early work, I'm so sorry. I'm a relatively taciturn guy but I see those things as my babies. I'm pretty sure I have everything I've ever shot, beginning with my brownie in the mid '60's. I'll have to do some digging this weekend.

... post st patrick's day 1985?
the streamers are for the festivities ...
the diner had a ktichenfire soon after the photographs were made...
oh, the negatives dissolved in a flood ( this is from a contact sheet )

i met the guy who restored the diner after the fire ... he said he wished he had
known me before he restored it because some of my photographs have details he didn't know about ...
after the diner was restored he brokered it to be sold to someone in california ...

PhotoBob said:

this post should be renamed, come on guys, the '80s is not old ... is it?

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Well...this is as far back as I can go for something I printed. My first print (film developed in a shop in Flagstaff), made on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park (employee darkroom). Summer of 1977: Self-portrait with Rolleiflex (self-timer). More than likely Vericrome Pan.

My mom displayed it for about 30 years. Another copy made at the same time and kept in a box looks like the day I made it.

this thread/post is a great idea

mill on the pawtuxet river
when it opened abraham lincoln raised the flag
they made uniforms for union troops during the
war between the states ... now its an upscale loft style hotel
taken in around 1984

slaughterhouse worker taken in around 84-85

Sandcastle contest at Big Corona State Beach, Southern California. Currently celebrating its 53rd year...

I can't date this accurately but my best guess is 40 years ago, their 13th year...

Paris '88. I still like them