1974 Long Beach

So far, I've been mostly going through my father's slides. He liked shooting slides back in the day, because he found a place that would not only develop his slides, but also make a negative out of them, something that was pretty rare. He liked this because he had a dark room in the basement, and would make his own prints, but he could have the slides handy to show to family and friends. Many of the slides are 40 years old, some even 50. Amazingly, many are still in great shape. However, a few look like this 1974 photo of a surfer at Long Beach:

A little on the pinkish side. But with a few clicks of Photoshop, it looks like it was taken yesterday.

What's Bugging You?

Dad took this picture of a mosquito on his arm while we camping at Schoen Lake in 1977. How do you get a shot like that? Well, apart from a whole lot of patience, you need a whole bunch of gear. Here's a shot I took of Dad getting that shot.

Charlottetown

This picture represents a bit of a mystery. This is a street in Charlottetown in early 1971. I think City Hall is on the left. The mystery is, what was Dad doing there in the middle of Winter? We think he was looking for work. My parents had decided that it was time to leave Montreal as a result of the October Crisis, and he applied to a number of places across the country. We made a trip to Calgary around this time to check things out, but he went to Charlottetown by himself.

Flower Friday!

Dad

Today would have been Dad's 90th birthday, so it's time for another one of his self-portraits. It's 1964, and dad has set up the camera on a timer for a family portrait. Note his unerring sense of timing as he blinks just as the shutter goes off. Also, this is clearly where my fascination with dolls action figures began. This is probably the earliest photo of the five of us: my parents, my two sisters and myself.

And this one, not taken by my father, is probably the last one taken of the five of us, from Christmas 1998, a couple of years before he passed away.