You can sort of imagine the different colors by the patterns... Larry is colorblind, so I'll ask him what colors he thinks the various flowers are. He'll probably be able to tell me quite accurately. It's a very cool photo and short article! Thanks for posting this!

I am terrible at printing photos!! I also don't like the way my computer at home stores photos (don't like the look of it compared to how I was used to saving) and they're pretty unorganized. When DH and I got together we'd always buy cheapy camera and take photos. Photos of places we've been, goofy photos, caught you off guard photos... we have three huge photo albums filled up (in order) and then I got a new digital camera and we just stopped. :( I guess I'm lazy when it comes to digital. The stores that have the little photo maker things are always so busy. Ording online means paying for shipping which can be high if you're ordering a bunch. I have photos on CDs but for some reason I think it makes it more difficult to find and view. Much easier when they're physically right there. I do back everything up now because I once lost all my photos on my computer. Most weren't important but there were some of family and of Sylvester as a kitten. I know people store them online with sites like Snapfish and Shutterfly but what happens if that company goes under or something? I have photos on some of those sites but it kind of bothers me to think they're just sitting there, online. Forever? My family took gobs of photos over the years and had them developed. I loved and still do enjoy looking. I also love a good home video once in awhile. They all bring back fond memories of being a kid. I'll have to come up with a good system/get organized when we have kids since I know we'll take a bazillion photos.

I'm enjoying all these wonderful pictures! Thanks so much for sharing. Jim, what's a lech well? Your mom looks like a fun person. Murraysmom, cute kids! Were you the only girl? I was an only child. Always wished for siblings. Still do! Jem, it's great that you know so much about your family history. That's a rare photo to have. I'm so spoiled when it comes to old photographs. Two of my grandparents were opera singers, so I have their publicity stills from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Plus my dad (their son) was an avid amateur photographer who loved to photograph people. Many of my friends and relatives appreciate to this day the pictures he took back at a time when not many people had cameras, at least not good ones. My mom was his favorite model, but he also documented every bit of my childhood. I have thousands of prints, slides, and negatives. Here I am on vacation in Quebec. The little boy spoke only French, and wouldn't share his crayons unless I asked for each color in French. I learned quickly. ;-) In the "play date" thread I talked about growing up in an apartment building with my two best friends, Pat and Carolyn. Here they are. Here's one of my mom before she and my dad were married. And after. One of my mom's sisters And my grandmother on stage (in a dark wig).

IdaClaire, such interesting photos. I'm glad to hear you're preserving them. I've scanned a lot of photos, some very old, negatives, slides and tin types. Plus all of our family photos taken over the years. Boxes and boxes, most not yet scanned. I had to ser that project aside for a while, but found it very rewarding. I just had a simple HP flatbed scanner and Photoshop. For people doing a lot of scans, there is equipment that will do batches and much faster. with Photoshop, I could crop, adjust the hue, contrast, saturation and remove or fix some of the artifacts (like your dots). Mold can create "foxing" and many album materials like plastic can leave marks, encourage mold, cause the photos to adhere to the plastic. Cellophane tape leaves brown marks. Inks can flow and transfer to other photos and leak to the image. Nowadays there are special archival quality materials that are kind, but in years past, these were not likely to be (readily) available. You might want to look into a preservationist as well as a scanning service, especially for any photos that are rare. The third photo down looks like a "Rough Rider". My grandfather was a Rough Rider, joining when he was 16 yo (fibbed to join). I have a bunch of photo from that era -- some showing all the tents where they trained (Florida). The men wore various types of "uniforms" -- apparently cobbled together from former campaigns. The uniform on the last chap does look like it belongs in a marching band; or possibly a conductor or circus performer. You might want to run that past an historian, or theatre production person. Someone at your towns historical society might be a good resource. When I was scanning a lot of old black and white family prints from those little booklets the photo shop used to put the 120 prints in, I got a huge kick out of enlarging them on my display screen. A regular wool skirt came alive with memories when I zoomed on it. I could see the flecks of colored wool dots amid the charcoal and found that I could remember that skirt of my mothers in detail and with that came a flood of memories and associations I was not informed of by just viewing the 3x3 inch gray toned glossy print. Now I want to post some of my photos and ask questions! So interesting.