Archive for the ‘Out West’ Category
Out West on The Reservation …
No clue where out West or what reservation that these Indians are on. I am not sure of the year either, but I know that it is around 1958 or so. I have several other negatives from this trip that I will find and see if they might give me a clue. I have scanned a lot of negatives and transparencies recently, so that I have a good number of images to work up for this blog and for my personal blog. Thanks again for looking and please check back … Frank
Bryce Canyon, Not The Grand Canyon …
This is from a transparency that my father had made back in the 1950’s on one of his trips out west to visit his sister. I made the mistake earlier of identifying the above image as the Grand Canyon and bubbasuess wrote and said that this is Bryce Canyon in Utah. That makes sense because I knew that my father had been to Bryce Canyon on one of his trips out West, since he had talked about it occasionally. I like the color in this transparency … nothing was done to change or alter the color, all I did was take out the dirt marks. Thanks for looking and again thanks for identifying the correct canyon … they all sort of look the same to me after a while. Please check back … Frank
Old Motel Room …
I know nothing about this motel room … have no clue where it was located or when it was taken or for what reason the photo was taken. If I had to guess, I would say the early 1950’s, maybe out west somewhere …. other than that, no clue. I think when I look at an image like this, the first thing that jumps out at me is the window unit … I bet a lot of motels did not have window units back in the early 1950’s and then look at the furniture and also how small the room looks to be. Occasionally I might think about a story to go along with these images and doing something about tying a few of them together somehow, but as you can tell from this blog I am not a writer, so I file that back in the vault somewhere. Thanks for looking and if you have comments, please let me hear them … Frank
Shoob’s Camera …
Shoob’s Camera Store … I guess I could Google it and see if it is still around and in business, but I have been busy lately and just have not had the time. If anyone out there has ever heard of it or has ever bought a camera from them, let us hear from you. I hope you noticed that I have changed a few things on this site and my personal blog, Frank Hardy Photo Blog . I still am in the process of changing a few things around here, that I hope are for the better, but more on that later. I still have a lot of images to post and they should keep me busy for years to come, so please check back periodically. That should do it for know … thanks again for looking and all comments are appreciated … Frank
The Garden of The Gods …
This photo was taken sometime in the late 1950’s. We made a trip out to Colorado and went to Pike’s Peak while we were out there. The Garden of the Gods is in Colorado Springs, which I guess is near by. I have another photo that he made that has some 50’s automobiles that I will post later. Thanks for looking … Frank
Out West … Again …
I have been going through old 120 film strips that my father shot out west somewhere. I do not have a clue where they were made ( as usual ) , but they are still interesting to me. These were made way before the interstate system was started and you took two lane roads through small towns, deserts, whatever. Back then you used to see and experience America, however it was slower. Now, everyone is in a hurry to get to their destination and all of these places are just areas on a map.
Here is a ferry somewhere out West … who knows, this could be the Mississippi River, but I sort of doubt it.
Two lane black-top was all you had for the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s until the interstate was built. No wonder it would take you almost two weeks to get across America from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. That is all I have for these images. Let me hear what you think … thanks for looking, Frank
Swimming in the Rio Grande …
This image is one that my father made back in the 1940’s on one of his trips out West to visit his sister. The photo was made from a bridge looking down at these kids swimming in this river … it must have been made with a wide angle lens because this negative was mostly all water and the kids were a very, very small section ( maybe about a quarter of the size of a “Forever” stamp ) of the negative. They are sharp, since you can see their features at this magnification, and I think that you can see how much fun they are having. What struck me was how ” muddy ” ( I did not want to say dirty ) this river is … however it does not seem to bother these boys. Coming from Florida and swimming in the Gulf and the rivers and bays in this area, I can never remember swimming in water that looked like this. But it sure looks like these kids are really enjoying themselves and the clarity of the water looks like the last thing on their mind … it makes me wonder if this was rain water or if it was just a lake with a sandy bottom. Whatever … thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Mount Rushmore II …
Here is one more of Mount Rushmore that I thought that I would post. It was made back in the early 1950’s when my father made the other that I posted some time ago. This one I left almost full frame and did not bother cropping out the people on the bottom left … I thought that they added some sense of scale to the photo. I also ran the file through the Lucis Art Filter to bring out the detail in the rock and the stone. The blueish color was added by me. No, I was not trying to make this resemble a cyanotype … I just like blue “cool” mono-colored images. I also did not bother taking out the lens flare in the top left corner. Thanks for looking and as usual, all comments are appreciated … And thanks for checking back … Frank
A Few More Unknowns From Out West …Actually From Dallas Texas …
These two photos were found with the ones of Modesto California, so I would imagine that they were made somewhere near the Modesto area. Since I have never been to this area, nothing even remotely looks familiar. The old cars crossing the bridge into the ” big ” city makes this photo look interesting to me. Somewhere back, I posted a photo my dad made by a shore with boats and it looked to me to have been made on a lake … I wonder if this bridge might have been across that lake. I know that we might never know for sure, since my father died four years ago, but it is interesting to speculate. The next photo is downtown somewhere …
The ” Hotel Whitmore ” sign is sure prominent in this photo … I wonder if this could be downtown Modesto? Maybe that was the city off in the distance as you crossed the bridge? I am sure that some one out there might know the answer. It is interesting to look at the downtown photo and see all of the street-car wires suspended above the street. Could you imagine going to a city this large now and looking up and seeing all of those wires … I am sure there is still a city out there today that looks like this, but I sure have not seen one in years. That is all for now. Thanks for looking and all comments are appreciated …
UPDATE: Someone commented and said that these two images are of Dallas Texas. The image above is Commerce Street in downtown Dallas, because the Hotel Whitmore is still there. The image before is a skyline of Dallas coming across some … I do not know which one, but is anyone knows, please let us hear from you. Thanks … Frank
One More From Modesto …
Here is one more for my friends out in Modesto … I cannot tell you how many hits I get on this site from people out in Modesto, but it is quite a few. My father never mentioned about traveling through Modesto on his trips out to LA to visit his sister back in the 1950’s. If I was on these trips, I would have only been between the ages of 2 and 5. I know that he took several trips to Yosemite and I guess that Modesto must be somewhere between there and Los Angeles. I do not know if this sign still exists out in Modesto now, it looks as if it would be too low for trucks to pass under. I have found several new negatives from this area that I will post in the near future … and I thought that I had run out of Modesto negatives! Thanks for everyone’s comments and as always, thanks for looking …
UPDATE: I did some work on this photo and sharpened another image up a good bit. The lettering on the sign reads: ” Water Wealth Contentment Health ” . I also noticed that the car’s tag in front of my parent’s car reads” 9D 16890″. Years ago, the Florida state license tag identified what county that the car was registered in. The “9” meant that the car was registered in Escambia County, which happened to be the 9th most populated county in the state at that time. A tag that started with “1” meant that the car was from Miami or Dade County. I think that Santa Rosa was somewhere around “33”, but I believe that only the first ten counties were identified by population and from “11” on they were alphabetic. At first I thought that my father had made this photo because of the sign, but it could have been something simple like just seeing this car registered in Escambia County out in Modesto California. I am sorry that the Internet does not show how sharp these images actually are … someday I will have to try to put on a show so everyone can see the finished prints. Thanks again … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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