Posts Tagged ‘Negatives’
Some New Images Purchased Off Of Ebay …
I posted this image over on my Instagram site and a lady identified this scene as the clock tower in Bern Switzerland. She goes by ” TrueColorChrome ” on Instagram and her specialty is colorizing black and white images. Here is a link to her web site and she is truly an artist. The work she does is amazing and people do not realize how time consuming the process is. She was also the one that located the city and country that this was taken. It was one of three negatives that I purchased from an individual on Ebay, of which two of the images I have already posted ( the market / street scene post one or two posts back ) . The next several photographs were taken in Paris before WW II…
The photographs were taken on Rue Royale in Paris. From what I been able to assume from looking on Google Maps and some other sources, the photographer might have been standing in the middle of Rue Royale and took the first photograph. Then he turned 180 degrees and took the second photograph. I was able to enlarge a sign on the right hand side of the image which read “Chrisofle”. This business is located on Rue Royale and here is a link to the Chrisofle web site ( it sells silverware ) and a map showing it’s present day location. I did run across a photo of this Rue Royale taken after WW II and the building across the street from this business had been completely destroyed. And the amazing thing to me was that the building at the end of this street was not bombed by the Nazi air raid. Now I doubt that the Nazi raid did not do this on purpose, because it is widely known that it did not bother Hitler if important buildings, museums, etc were destroyed or not. There is nothing special about either image other that the fact that they were pre-WWII and the seller was not asking much for them. I am surprised what seller’s are asking on Ebay for some unknown individual’s personal photos. I have seen amateur’s negatives going for thousands of dollars and they are nothing more than just random views of nothing … I have always said ” Just because it is old, does not make it gold ” .
That is it for now … If anyone has ever been on the above streets in Bern Switzerland or Paris France ( not Kentucky or Texas ) and would like to comment, please feel free. My Instagram account gets me way more views that my blogs have ever received and it is easier to access. So please feel free to see what I post on it and to leave a comment. Thanks again for looking and I am going to try to get back in the habit of posting more frequently in the future. For now … stay safe.
Unknown Negatives …
A while back on a post, I mentioned that if anyone had any negatives that they did not want to let me know. I talked to several people and the negatives they had, had that either been passed down from family members or they had acquired some other way … flea market find, garage sale find, etc, etc. Most all were just family snapshots, backyard picnics and vacation candid photos. Not exactly what I was looking for, so I did what any other red-blooded American would do … I went on Ebay and bought some. To me, almost all of the negatives that are posted for sale, fit into that category of family snapshots, backyard picnics and vacation travels. Knowing that I should have been more specific, I was not exactly sure of what it was that I was looking for until I ran across the negatives that I am putting up in this post … images showing everyday randomness from the 1930’s to the sixties. Now, the images do not have to show only America, but anywhere in the world … Europe, Asia, China, Africa. So, I purchased these negatives, scanned them and worked them up in Photoshop. They were in fairly good shape, requiring not much computer time to remove scratches, marks, stains, etc. And as usual, I know nothing at all about them other than the obvious – taken in the 1930’s or 40’s and somewhere in Europe. The location could be Germany or some place that speaks German judging by the words / lettering in the photos. There were three negative and I have worked up two. So here they are …
The first image is an overall view of the market and since the people look clean and well fed, I would say that it is pre-WWII. The second showing a meat market / stall looks as if there might be some type of rationing going on since there is not a wide variety of meat or sausages for sale. If anyone recognizes where this area is, please feel free to comment and share what you know with us. I have one more negative from this purchase that I will post once I get it cleaned up and ready. The last photo is really the reason that I purchased these three negatives and besides the fact that they were less than ten dollars. One problem that you find is that everyone thinks that what they have is more valuable than what it actually is … just because it is old, does not mean it is gold ( that is my own phrase ). There are some negatives on Ebay now where the sellers want tens of thousands of dollars for their negatives!
So, if anyone come across any negatives that fit the criteria that I mentioned earlier, before you throw them away, think of me. And, if anyone recognizes anything in these two images which would help me locate the place or the time frame of them, please let me hear from you. Thanks again for looking and I hope everyone had a safe new year … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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