Roger's Photos - New ones posted!

[Sunsilver]

My husband loved photography. At one time, he tried to make his living at it, founding a company called Photoventure. I am going to use this album to share some of his best photos.

Please be patient with me, they all have to be scanned into the computer, and many of them are in the form of slides, which I do not yet have a scanner for.

Here is the first one, a photo taken inside a tent in Happy Valley, Labrador in 1956. The Indian tribe name is Nescape (Nescapi), but I can find no reference to it on the web, and I'm not sure of the spelling.

The woman making the snowshoe is the last in the tribe who remembers how to weave the story of the hunt into the web of the shoe. I have that pair of snowshoes carefully preserved as a priceless memento. The join in the wood of the frame is so well done, you can hardly see where it is.

I will post a picture of the shoes sometime soon.

I think this is one of the best photos he ever took. It was done with a Leica camera, using available light only. It looks like something you'd see in National Geographic.

[Griffon64]

It absolutely does look like a National Geographic photo.

The story behind it is very interesting, too. Thank you for sharing, and I look forward to more photos and the stories surrounding them.

[narya]

That's a lovely picture, Sunny.

The Naskapi are Canadian Indians, also called Innu. They might be interested in your photos, which might be of grandparents or other recognizable elders of their community. Here's their website: http://www.naskapi.ca/

Here's more on teh Innu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innu

Here's a picture of Naskapi snowshoes. They look similar to yours: http://www.naskapi.ca/en/our_culture/tools.htm

[Sunsilver]

Thank you narya! That's wonderful information!

And yes, the snowshoes look identical to the ones I have except for the pattern of the weave in the webbing

[eborr]

thats a great picture - fantastic atmosphere, I look forward to seeing more

[Sunsilver]

Okay, I've scanned a couple more. The quality of these won't be as high, because they are your standard-sized commercial prints (3x5") while the above scan was from an 8x10. The panda picture is cropped, so it is especially poor.

I have about 60 35 mm slides from Roger's 'specials' (his really, really good pictures) and will be asking his brother to scan them for me. At that point, I may post some better quality prints of the above.

'Firebird' is an exploding firework, taken at Toronto's annual Symphony of Fire fireworks competition. Roger was one of the official photographers for that event.

The ice eagles are from Toronto's ice sculpture competition, at City Hall. They are both of the same sculpture, one under daylight conditions, and one under night time lighting.

Quan Quan was a giant panda on loan from China to the Metro Zoo.

The Firebird and the Ice Eagles were Roger's most commercially successful photos. He sold or gave away a number of full-sized enlargements (approximately 36x24") If I were to mount all of his enlargements, I would have no wall space left anywhere! I'm sure those of you who live with avid photographers have similar problems, not to mention the boxes and boxes overflowing with regular-sized prints and slides!



Quan Quan Licks His Bowl



Ice Eagle- Silver



Ice Eagle - Gold



Firebird

[Inanna]

These are lovely, Sun. Thanks for sharing.

[Griffon64]

Wow - really great pictures. Thanks for sharing!

The ice sculpture ones rock!

[Northerner]

Amazing photos. I couldn't take my eyes off the first one.

[Sunsilver]

I now have a new toy, a HP scanner that will scan 16 slides at a time, so I can scan the pictures for which I have no prints. Here's the first batch. These are all Roger's "Specials", the slides he singled out and put in special envelopes to have enlarged and printed.

Would someone please show me how I can create my own photo album on HoF? Meanwhile out of pity for those of you who may be on dialup, I am going to post the pictures to Photobucket, instead of posting them here.

Here is the link to the album: http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a344/ ... %20Photos/

I am not quite finished tweaking the new photos yet. A few of them need to be named, and the one of the beaver crossing the lake will have to be re-scanned as there was a large hair in the upper right corner of the slide!

Some of the photos reveal the faults of a camera that is now 50 years old (a Leica M3). They lack the sharpness that more modern lenses or digital photos would give. The Lincoln Memorial photo is the worst, due to the dim light conditions. I also had to crop it, which didn't help.

[Rowanberry]

Lovely. Roger was a talented photographer.

And, I'm sure professional photographers would say that with an old camera of good quality, one can get even better photos than with modern digital equipment.

[Sunsilver]

There are many people who believe that, Rowan, and the Leica has quite a following! It actually reaches ridiculous proportions: I saw an original box for the M3 camera on sale on E-bay for $225.00!! NOT the camera...just the EMPTY BOX!!

All I care is that the camera works, and, all other things being equal, the most important factor in a good photo is the eye and mind behind the camera.

Remember the Polaroid Land cameras? They took pretty crappy photos. But I saw photos published in Life magazine which had been taken by the inventor of the camera, who, needless to say, was an avid photographer. They were gorgeous photos, well worth hanging on the wall of a gallery, or someone's living room!

Roger left behind the bodies for two Leica M3's, with assorted lenses, tripods and attachments. I currently have the cameras and two lenses that were damaged in being repaired. Going to set me back a few hundred dollars, but they've sat in a dark closet long enough. If I can't find the time to learn how to use them, I'm going to sell them to someone who will. (Gimli, are you listening?? ) They were meant to be USED!!

And I might just get my 35 mm Nikon out of storage, and blow the dust off it. Here's a few photos I took with that camera. I thought I'd lost the photos of Lili Marlene, my first dog, FOREVER, so what a treat it was to have them turn up!

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a344/ ... %20Photos/

I'm enlarging the picture of Sharon and Brandy, the one where she's holding his paw, and giving it to her as a birthday present.

The other photos, alll from the one roll of film, are equally precious. The picture of the BBQ in the snow (how Canadian!) is from my second ever meeting with my birth mom. It was also the first time I ever tasted real French-Canadian style baked beans. YUUUMMM!

The pictures of Roger are from the first morning of our honeymoon, and are my very favourite pictures of him. (There's one that's misising: I'm having a print made, as I have the negatives now!) The one where he's about to eat the table decorations demonstrates one of the things that made me fall in love with him, the part of him that was forever 10 years old!

[Lalaith]

Oh, those were all so lovely!

Thank you for sharing them.


Lali

[Sunsilver]

Thanks to Voronwë, I now have my very own Hall of Fire album!

Please go HERE to view it!

There are a few photos in it that are not in the Photobucket album, and some of the others have been cleaned up a bit. With the older Kodak slides, the viewing area was smaller than the newer ones, and this tends to show up as a black edge on the scans, as you might have noticed with some of the photos in the Photobucket album.

It's interesting to notice the subtle differences between the original Firebird slide, and the print I posted above, which has been cropped and brightened a bit. Here's the scan of the original slide:



And here's the final picture, after cropping and enhancing:



The specks in the background of the second picture are due to it being a much-abused 5x7 print which I scanned. Wish I had a better copy of it. Well, actually I DO, but it's not scannable, as it's approximately 36" x 24" in size, framed behind glass, and hanging on the wall!

The quality of most of these slides makes me appreciate Roger's rather anal storage system. He'd paste a 5x7 print to the outside of an envelope that was slightly larger than the print. Then, he'd make a little cardboard pocket, just large enough to hold the slide, put the slide inside it, then place it in the envelope. Some of the more valuable slides have both a plastic pocket AND a cardboard pocket. To get the plastic one, he'd cut up those plastic slide viewers, which are large sheets with enough pockets for a whole roll's worth of slides. I wonder if they still sell those? I don't have the patience to make little cardboard holders, but the plastic pockets are a great idea for protecting valuable slides!

To get back on topic here, really, though, this has to be the picture of a lifetime, to catch such an image in the brief seconds between the time the firework exploded, and faded into blackness. The skill for this one came in knowing how to crop and adjust the image for maximum effect.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Wow, Sunny, what a difference! I'll bet that framed big version is really spectacular.