Family photography
Jan. 10th, 2004 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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susandennis's post on photography, The Family of Pix.
I inherited photography from both sides of my family. We always had lots of photographs, in fact I have an album with pictures of many ancestors I never met. One of the oldest photographers I knew was my great grandfather, William Kenneth Ford, who I called Poppy. He lived in Windsor, Ontario, but worked as a draftsman in Detroit. Every day until he retired at age 75 he walked through the tunnel under the Detroit River to the Penobscot Building. Working in a patent office, he had access to many new inventions. He even had an early home movie camera. Here is a still photograph he took of my great grandmother, Laura Mary (Frederick) Ford, who I called Dommy. The baby on her knee is my grandmother, Thelma May (Ford) Tobin, who is still alive. This photo must have been taken the year she was born, 1912. The location is the Windsor docks on the Detroit River. Somewhere my parents have movie film taken in the same location, possibly the same day, but it is damaged beyond repair. Dommy lived to be 103 and died in 1996
This was my mother's family, but my father was the photographer when I was growing up. The images from their early marriage are Polaroids, but by the time I was born in 1964, he had a better camera. This was taken the day I came home from the hospital.
Dad began taking pictures of landscapes and closeups of nature. My brother, Mike, and I both acquired an interest in art and photography from him. I received my first instamatic camera when I was eight. My parents took me to Williamsburg, Virginia one spring. Holding the camera by the cord, I constantly swung it in circles. In every photograph Dad took of Mom and me, you can see that camera flying at some silly upward angle from my hand. Those were the days when things didn't break easily and I had the camera for a few years.
In my teens I began using Dad's camera to take pictures of wildflowers. In 1980 when we camped in the Rockies with Mike and his wife, I spent hours photographing wildflowers. I still have all these on slides. As a grade 12 graduation gift, my parents gave me a Canon AE-1. Later they gave me a 70-210mm zoom lens. For the next few years I was an avid photographer. Here is one of my favourite photos I took of Mom, circa 1987, at home on the Lake Erie beach.
The same camera became a tool of the trade when I studied journalism and became a reporter for The Hanover Post. I learned how to develop and print film, and dreamed of having my own dark room.
Dad lost interest in photography for a while and Mom became frustrated with the lack of a family record. Eventually she got an instamatic camera and started taking snapshots herself. Nowadays they both use the same camera and photography has become part of the characteristic natter of a couple married 53 years: "Make sure you gets pictures of this, Don."
After becoming unemployed I could hardly afford to buy and develop film, so I gradually stopped taking pictures. Mom and Dad gave me the Kodak DX3500 for Christmas two years ago. I was frustrated by the lack of control over focus and light exposure. At first I didn't use it much except to record events.
That changed after I joined LJ and saw other people posting the kinds of photographs I used to like taking.
susandennis's post on photography, The Family of Pix.I inherited photography from both sides of my family. We always had lots of photographs, in fact I have an album with pictures of many ancestors I never met. One of the oldest photographers I knew was my great grandfather, William Kenneth Ford, who I called Poppy. He lived in Windsor, Ontario, but worked as a draftsman in Detroit. Every day until he retired at age 75 he walked through the tunnel under the Detroit River to the Penobscot Building. Working in a patent office, he had access to many new inventions. He even had an early home movie camera. Here is a still photograph he took of my great grandmother, Laura Mary (Frederick) Ford, who I called Dommy. The baby on her knee is my grandmother, Thelma May (Ford) Tobin, who is still alive. This photo must have been taken the year she was born, 1912. The location is the Windsor docks on the Detroit River. Somewhere my parents have movie film taken in the same location, possibly the same day, but it is damaged beyond repair. Dommy lived to be 103 and died in 1996
This was my mother's family, but my father was the photographer when I was growing up. The images from their early marriage are Polaroids, but by the time I was born in 1964, he had a better camera. This was taken the day I came home from the hospital.
Dad began taking pictures of landscapes and closeups of nature. My brother, Mike, and I both acquired an interest in art and photography from him. I received my first instamatic camera when I was eight. My parents took me to Williamsburg, Virginia one spring. Holding the camera by the cord, I constantly swung it in circles. In every photograph Dad took of Mom and me, you can see that camera flying at some silly upward angle from my hand. Those were the days when things didn't break easily and I had the camera for a few years.
In my teens I began using Dad's camera to take pictures of wildflowers. In 1980 when we camped in the Rockies with Mike and his wife, I spent hours photographing wildflowers. I still have all these on slides. As a grade 12 graduation gift, my parents gave me a Canon AE-1. Later they gave me a 70-210mm zoom lens. For the next few years I was an avid photographer. Here is one of my favourite photos I took of Mom, circa 1987, at home on the Lake Erie beach.
The same camera became a tool of the trade when I studied journalism and became a reporter for The Hanover Post. I learned how to develop and print film, and dreamed of having my own dark room.
Dad lost interest in photography for a while and Mom became frustrated with the lack of a family record. Eventually she got an instamatic camera and started taking snapshots herself. Nowadays they both use the same camera and photography has become part of the characteristic natter of a couple married 53 years: "Make sure you gets pictures of this, Don."
After becoming unemployed I could hardly afford to buy and develop film, so I gradually stopped taking pictures. Mom and Dad gave me the Kodak DX3500 for Christmas two years ago. I was frustrated by the lack of control over focus and light exposure. At first I didn't use it much except to record events.
That changed after I joined LJ and saw other people posting the kinds of photographs I used to like taking.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-10 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-10 03:14 pm (UTC)hmmm, detroit, so Ford as in FORD?
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Date: 2004-01-10 03:17 pm (UTC)My parents were always a handsome couple. Mom's bout with cancer has taken it's toll, but she is starting to look better again.
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Date: 2004-01-10 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-10 03:31 pm (UTC)Thank you
Date: 2004-01-10 04:06 pm (UTC)I wonder at times about having an 'eye' for images, and how it runs in families. Perhaps this was a strength that the old guild system tapped into in a way we do not. Who knows?
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Date: 2004-01-10 04:16 pm (UTC)The quality of film photos is becoming approachable with the digital age (see
I'm glad you're back behind the lens. No matter what fashion.
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Date: 2004-01-10 04:20 pm (UTC)Re: Thank you
Date: 2004-01-10 05:14 pm (UTC)Thank you for thoughtful words about this post.
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Date: 2004-01-10 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-10 05:46 pm (UTC)This is close to the colour of the photo I have, which is a photo of a photo. I scanned it in black and white, then thought better of it and colorized the image back to sepia. ;-)
The image of my great great grandparents in the subsequent post was scanned in full colour.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-10 07:12 pm (UTC)old snapshots, even sometimes when they're not as
well done as those. i really must get my son
or daughter-in-law over here for a day, just to scan
family photos and put them into some sort of online
album.~paul
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Date: 2004-01-11 01:00 pm (UTC)I am mesmerized by that first photo. Love old photos...Your great grandmother is so beautiful! And lived to 103!!!wow.
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Date: 2004-01-11 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-11 01:59 pm (UTC)Sadly, arthritis confined her to bed for the last 15 years of her life.
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Date: 2004-01-11 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-11 02:13 pm (UTC)wait a minute.
15 YEARS in bed??!!!
omigod I am unable to fathom! How did she spend her time? I MUST know!! I think of Jorge Luis Borges stories...and of Proust...and how the reliving of memories, the searching through rooms in the mind....can/must make time meaningful.
I just still cannot imagine. And YET, often I feel as if this life of mine...is merely a day of reverie...the moments stretched out as much as possible, the details 'fetched' and arranged around me so that I SLIP, forget, and become 'young' again...reLIVE.
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Date: 2004-01-11 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-12 07:38 am (UTC)Then my aunt got cancer and Dommy had to go into a nursing home. That must have been miserable for her. For years she talked about being ready to die. She went blind, but her mind stayed sharp. The last time I visited her, she hadn't seen me for several years, but she knew who I was. By then she had about 25 great grand children and 15 great great grandchildren. I took my daughters to visit her. Marian, who was two, was scared of her, but Brenna was only two months old. Dommy couldn't see her but was delighted to take her in her hands and give her a kiss.
Being blind and crippled she couldn't go anywhere or do anything. I spent a week in hospital last year, and I have never been so bored. I think it must have been awful for her. Her heart simply kept on going. In the end she stopped eating, and we believe she deliberately starved herself to death. It's sad that she had no other options.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-12 08:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-12 08:35 am (UTC)