"Lost" Film Found in Antique Cameras
 

Back in the days before dinosaurs ruled the earth, before digital technology, we actually had to stuff a roll of film inside of a camera, take pictures, and then take them to be developed. (I know...hard to beleive, ain't it).

Well, there's a guy out there, that makes a hobby of collecting these old cameras. Sometimes, he finds them with the film still inside of them. He claims about a 50% success rate, in recovering the images from this old film.

The link below leads to prints made from processing the film that he's found in these old cameras. In many cases the exposed films were over fifty years old. You are seeing them for the first time as they were lost by the photographers that took these images. Kinda sad, really.

http://westfordcomp.com/updated/found.htm

Wonderful stuff! I've never even heard of film packs. This will take me a while to go through. Might want to move this thread to Photography, no?

Cool site BOR, I now know how my afternoon is going to be occupied, I love these old pictures.

Ok...I may be old, but I'm not old enough for these to have been my original work. ;)

Oh. I thought the area was about photography, not only for photographs.

I have one of these cameras at home, I got it from my grandma years ago, I didn't know it was that old though.
http://www.boxcameras.com/cam1920on/target616.jpg

I have a 616 Brownie too, but I don't recall if it's the same model. I've got a number of old cameras. Used to have a Leica 3 from the late 30s or early 40s, but it got stolen from a camera store I'd taken it to. :(

My mom collects antique cameras. She's yet to find any with film, though. Very cool link, Bill.

Admit it, you have been travelling the world depositing cameras with undeveloped film here and there since the thirties, haven't you?

Cool link, by the way. I must've "wasted" an hour looking around on it when I should've been writing. :thumbsup:

"I must've "wasted" an hour looking around on it"

Ditto and I know I didn't see it all. Thinking maybe I should vist some junkshops...how many times I've passed by old cameras without a thought.
Some of those old pix brought back some of my own memories (no, I'm not THAT old!! :lol: )

wow, thats some nice stuff!


i'm going to have to take a peak for film next time i go around an antiques dealer!

This guy appears to be local to me. The second picture down on this page is on Massachusetts route 9 in Hadley Massachusetts.

He says he's in Massachusetts somewhere in his site, I'm pretty sure

Oh, he is. He's around here close by, clearly. There are a lotta pictures from western Massachusetts are on his site. I wonder if I can contact him and point him here.

(edit) I've e-mailed him and referred him to this thread. Let's see if he responds.

(another edit) Of course, 'cause this thread is in Members Playground, a new reader can't get here...

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Get a little too excited, Denim?

I hope and assume this site is on photography forums, etc. It'd be a shame if not one child in those pix came forward, or relatives, specially of whoever took all those WW2 pictures.

What photography forums? I see a reply in my inbasket from the guy... let's see... Definitely a reply. He's glad we like the site. :)

This is a very cool thread, and the site is fantastic for what it contains.

A friend of mine used to do this - going to old thrift shops and such looking for old cameras. Only on a few occasions did he ever find film in them but was never able to get any prints from them.

I should email him a link to this site.

Wow. Love the site....thanks for the link, BOR!

BTW, does anyone know where all the WW2 photos were taken? They look European to me, but I have no idea where from.

They're from Italy, Naples more than likely since that's where the USAHS Algonquin which you see on some of the pictures were stationed a lot during WW II.
http://www.angelfire.com/home/usahsa...in/history.htm

Yes indeed Bill, wonderful link.

Maybe to help out snowys mom, and anyone else out there with some of this old gear collecting dust (silent_jay), there's a fellow near me that still makes film for these old classics. He also offers processing as well. His company is called film for classics, and here's his link:

http://www.filmforclassics.com/

I know the guy from him visiting our store, and will definately put the paddyjoe seal of approval on his product....... :thumbsup:

There is a poem attached to one of the sections, that I particularly like. It shows a couple of images of a girl, around 8-10 years old, dressed in what appears to be 1940's era clothing. (I can't display those images, for obvious reasons. ;) )

I waited in this camera for fifty odd years.
While you fought with others.
And mothers shed tears.
You walked on the moon and lived in the sky.
Yet still do you hate.
And still do you die.
Light struck film and this image was made.
While war brewed around me, the world was afraid.
In Europe, The Pacific, soldiers did fall.
As they fought the one, that would, end it all.

At last I am free, my waiting at end.
How I did get here, I can't comprehend.
Scanned and placed for all the world to see.
Mankind is so clever, so how can it be ?
You still seethe with hate, you're all still the same.
Intolerant and ignorant, the world still aflame.
Can't I go back to that dark little place ?
And wait fifty more years, and not show my face.

one quote stuck with me. There's some truth in what he's said I think.

A lot of these remind me of my grandmothers old pictures.

Sometime I'll sort through them and post them for you, if you enjoy the old pictures so much! :)

Thanks so much for that link, sites like these (tfp AND the photograph site) make me glad I have the internet.

On a side note, does anyone notice that people in old photos LOOK different than people of today? Not just their clothes and their hair, but the way their faces look. Perhaps it is because people back then tended to not have so many ethnicities within themselves. Like, I'm German, Polish, French, Irish, Czech, etc... and it probably is normal for people today to be a mix of lots of things as well. And back then, not so common.

Okay, I'm done. But yes, great site.

I think it may also have something to do with the lower fat intake, as well as lower quantities of food in general. They may have been better nourished, and I expect they did more physical activity.

You are probably correct... one thing I did notice is that many of their cheekbones are more pronounced than people these days, which is generally more common than if you are overweight.

About 20 years ago I found on a bulletin board in a shopping center a sheet of paper advertising the following:
"Divorce Sale!
Husband went to Europe on business five years ago, decided to never come back. Divorce "in absentia" just finalized, and I finally get to sell off all his stuff. "
(list of stuff follows, mostly sort of like this: )
"Suits, size 42 short, 42 waist, 5 years out of style, mostly polyester. $10 each or best offer."
And so on, until…
"Old fashioned boxy-type camera that takes wide rolls of film. Weighs a ton, too big to carry in a purse, needs lots of fiddling before use. Hardly used because it’s too damn much trouble. Actually named ‘Hasselblad’ on the front, probably because it’s a bad hassle to use, for sure. Comes with six extra lenses, some bigger than the camera.. $15 dollars OBO for the lot."

It was gone before I called. Some "nice guy" liked it so much he gave her $50, because "he said she had it under priced."

No kidding. The camera body would have been worth about $2,500. Hasselblad lenses would have cost anywhere from $2500 to $10,000 each. And with six you would have had to have had some of the really expensive ones in the mix...

Thanks for the info, Pip! I need to show these to my hubby; he used to do photography as a hobby (dunno why he stopped, he's good at it), and he enjoys war things as well.

We've got a Brownie around the house. Great stuff.

This great site is made possible by the fact that the old film stock really lasts forever. I had my parents' 1950s 8mm film transfered to video at the local photo processing shot, and they told me to hang onto the original film because it has a life of 100+ years. With a videotape, you get maybe 20.

As for digital photography making us a generation of crappy photographers: not true. We were always crappy. We just weren't free to take an endless number of crappy pictures.

As a journalist, long ago, I took a brief course in action photography from a real pro. He said the pros take hundreds of shots from all angles with a variety of lenses and exposures. Then throw out all but two or three. The only problem people have with digital is that they don't know which 3 out of the 50 they've taken are any good, and they save them _all._

One thing to consider is the formal affair photoshoots were back then.
That'd be like comparing people dressed in their "sunday best" to friday casual.

Take a look at how people appear in professional studios rather than everyday candids...
because people would put their best clothes on, and make-up, & etc. (intentionally drawing out their cheekbones, for example)

The whole thing is one big beautiful page of visual poetry.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. It was moving.

This one is worth a bump. I just wasted another morning perusing his site. He's added a few things, since I last viewed it.