Topic: 3,400 Slides

[Bryan]

I had my father over for dinner last night, he brought 3,400 slides with him.  They start in 1964 and end in 1994, pretty much all family stuff.  I think most of them were shot with a Yashica Lynx 5000 followed by a Minolta srTsc II.  Since my mother past away a few years ago my father has been slowly clearing stuff from the house that he has lived in for over 50 years.  One of those situations where they didn't throw anything away.  I told him I would go through them and give them a new home.  I also have his old slide projector to view them with since it's set up for the round slide carousels.  It's a Sawyers Crestline Deluxe projector that we viewed these slides with since my childhood.  I know it well, he used to let me operate it. 

I'll probably scan some of the slides as I go through them.  He already scanned several of them a while back but I think I can do better.  He used a service through Costco several years ago that was mediocre back then.  As I go through them I will transfer the information for each slide to a sheet that can be stored with them.  Right now everything is writen on the boxes for the carousels.  I bought a few Logan slide files that each hold 750 slides.  I figure that is the most compact way to store them going forward.  I'll keep a few of the round carousels to go with the projector but will likely get rid of the rest of them.  Anyone need slide carousels that hold 100 slides each?  They work with Sawyers, Keystone, Nikon, GAF, Argus, Minolta, Haminex, Anscomatic, Focal and several re-branded projectors. 

I'm looking forward to this since I haven't seen most of these in a very long time.  I'll take my time so it doesn't seem like a major chore.  Maybe I'll post a few shots here to prove that I once had hair on top of my head. 

[Francois]

Scanning all this stuff is a heck of a lot of work. But at least it isn't like my grandpa's slides that are in aluminum Airequip holders. These are a pain to take out, but since he used Leica Aluminum glass mounts, I think they're better protected that way.

If you plan on scanning them all, I seriously consider investing in a Kodak Scanza scanner. Not the best but fast and good enough to get through the pile in a reasonable amount of time.

[Bryan]

I don't plan on scanning all of them.  I'm getting an attachment for my digital camera to scan them.  I think these are all in the standard cardboard slide mounts. 

[02Pilot]

I've got thousands of slides my father shot from the late 60s through probably the late 1970s. Some of the early ones are half-frames. I really need to start going through them, but it's a daunting prospect.

[Moto-uno]

  That'll be one heck of a trip down nostalgia lane , good luck ! Peter

[Bryan]

As of today I've gone through 600 slides.  I'm just scanning some of the highlights, scanning everything would be too much.  My father put every slide from every roll of film into the carousels so even the bad ones are there.  I am impressed with some of his photos, he did a good job with that Yashica rangefinder.  Here are a few that I scanned.

The first one is brand new Bryan with his mother, I like the lighting from the window.  The other two are me with my older brother Allen, he still looks exactly the same, just a bit taller.  the second one is my first lesson in flash photography.  The third one is me getting my first exposure to professional photography with the February 1968 issue of National Geographic.  My father finally got rid of his 50+ years of National Geographic magazines a few months ago.   

[Francois]

I must say that your mom was cute in those days.

[Bryan]

I must say that your mom was cute in those days.

Thanks Francois, makes you wonder why her children are so goofy looking.

[Francois]

They obviously take after dad

[Bryan]

Since I can't have everyone over for a slide show here's an update on my progress.  So far I've gone through 1,400 slides, almost half way.  That's 1964 to 1977.  Here are some favorites of mine.

[Bryan]

There are a few slides of my father at work that are slipped in every now and then.  I don't think they were taken with his camera because the slide mounts are different from the others.  Maybe a co-worker took them.  He was a flight test engineer at Boeing, I remember him traveling every now and then to test planes in extreme conditions like the Southwest desert heat or cold weather in Alaska.  I still have some microfilm that he brought home with engineering stuff on it.  I used to think it was classified top secret stuff because it was on microfilm.  He did work on military aircraft like the AWACS, an airborne early warning system but I doubt he brought home classified information for his boys to play with. 

[Blaxton]

These are great.  I can imagine that it is taking fa huge amount of time but it's worth it.  Keep 'em coming.  I look forward to the next installment in the series "The Life of Bryan". 

[astrobeck]

Yes! Keep them coming!
I love looking at old slides/photos and the color and just the way things were a decade or so ago.

I pass by that airfield (Walker Air Force Base) in Roswell three times a year on the way home to Texas.
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/NM/Airfields_NM_Roswell.htm

It's very cool your Dad saved all of those slides!
What a trip down memory lane!!!

Beck

[Bryan]

I'll keep them coming but be warned, we're getting close to the awkward teen years.  I can get through a 100 slide carousel in the evening after work if I'm not interrupted and a few over the weekend.  So that amounts to 2 to 4 a week.  I'll take some time off over the Holidays and get through several that way.  I hope to get it mostly done this winter.  I have a pretty good process set up that involves taking notes while viewing the slides, scanning the good ones then editing them on the computer, one carousel at a time.   

It's a great trip down memory lane and it helps refresh a lot of memories that had faded. 

[Francois]

I find it funny to see those plane photos.
My dad used to work for Pratt & Whitney (they make the engines for many planes) and he has a ton of pictures like those including some similar instruments.
And since he used to work in experimental, he also traveled quite a bit and worked on some military projects too.
Those were good years for him but bad years for the family as all that travel and long hours really put some pressure on mom and me.

[Indofunk]

These are great!! Definitely keep them coming

[Bryan]

I just came across the first photo of me with a camera.  I remember getting the Kodak X-15F just before this trip to New York.  I still have the camera and the photos I took on the trip.

Since it's finally snowing in the mountains around here I thought I would share our favorite winter sport from my childhood, flying out of control down a mountain on an inner tube, or whatever would slide on snow.  This was at a local ski area, Snoqualmie Pass, where they still have an area for doing this. 

[Francois]

Tubing is definitely fun!
I went to a place to do it a few times when I was a kid and loved every minute of it.
Funny thing is they had slopes labeled beginner/intermediate/advanced... I just couldn't figure out why so I always chose the steep and fast one 

[Bryan]

I got through 2 carousels this weekend.  The most time consuming part is editing them on the computer, watching them and scanning them is the easy part. 

These are from 1978 and 1979.
19.  My brother and I with my cousin Angie at an obsidian flow near Bend, Oregon.  My father took us on a lot of rock hound trips looking for crystals and fossils, a big reason why I became a Geologist.
22.  My older brother Allen with his fish.  That's me behind him, both my brothers got their picture taken with their fish, I guess I didn't catch anything. 
45.  My first BMX bike.  At one point I crashed going off a jump with that bike.  I took a pedal to the head and had to get stitches.  It's a good thing concussions weren't a big deal back then, I could have been seriously hurt.  We had a great dirt track near my house until Microsoft came along and built their headquarters there.  We were pretty upset about that.
57.  My younger brother Darren and I on the bumper cars at Seattle Center.  Darren's a less aggressive driver now.
67.  I took this one on a bike ride with Darren and my father.  That shot was taken about half way between my current house and the house I grew up in.  My father is 80 and still lives in the same house and still rides his bike on that trail.  He finished a marathon last year, he may outlive me.

[Indofunk]

I just came across the first photo of me with a camera.  I remember getting the Kodak X-15F just before this trip to New York.  I still have the camera and the photos I took on the trip.

Since it's finally snowing in the mountains around here I thought I would share our favorite winter sport from my childhood, flying out of control down a mountain on an inner tube, or whatever would slide on snow.  This was at a local ski area, Snoqualmie Pass, where they still have an area for doing this.

If you were to sidetrack this thread by posting the pictures that you took in NYC in 1978, I would not object!!

[Bryan]

I just came across the first photo of me with a camera.  I remember getting the Kodak X-15F just before this trip to New York.  I still have the camera and the photos I took on the trip.

Since it's finally snowing in the mountains around here I thought I would share our favorite winter sport from my childhood, flying out of control down a mountain on an inner tube, or whatever would slide on snow.  This was at a local ski area, Snoqualmie Pass, where they still have an area for doing this.

If you were to sidetrack this thread by posting the pictures that you took in NYC in 1978, I would not object!!

I thought I knew exactly where they were but, after reading your post, I went looking for them and they weren’t there.  I know they’re in a little yellow box labeled New York, I just need to track them down. 

[Bryan]

If you were to sidetrack this thread by posting the pictures that you took in NYC in 1978, I would not object!!

I found them after tearing my house apart for two days.  These are just a few highlights, I think my photo skills have improved a little since I took these in 1978.  Obviously someone else took the last one with my camera.

Statue of Liberty - June 1978 by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Queens NY - June 1978 by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Barbara and Mich - Queens NY - June 1978 by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Aquarium at Coney Island - June 1978 by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Allen and Bryan on Empire State Building - June 1978 by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

[Indofunk]

Thanks! Queens certainly still looks like Queens!

[Bryan]

Thanks! Queens certainly still looks like Queens!

Every time I go back I'm amazed at how little has changed.  The candy store I used to go to on the corner of Broadway and Crescent is still there. 

[Indofunk]

Thanks! Queens certainly still looks like Queens!

Every time I go back I'm amazed at how little has changed.  The candy store I used to go to on the corner of Broadway and Crescent is still there.

That can't be true. Also, that is about 5 blocks from my apartment. I'm going to take a picture of every store on that corner and you can ID it

[Bryan]

Thanks! Queens certainly still looks like Queens!

Every time I go back I'm amazed at how little has changed.  The candy store I used to go to on the corner of Broadway and Crescent is still there.

That can't be true. Also, that is about 5 blocks from my apartment. I'm going to take a picture of every store on that corner and you can ID it

Challenge accepted. 

[Bryan]

This was a really neat hike that we did in 1980.  I remember it well because going into the ice caves was one of the coolest things I have seen.   These are ice caves under a glacier on Mount Rainier.  It's where the melt water flows under the glacier, the cave opening is at the bottom of the glacier where the water exits.  Once you get a good distance in there away from the light coming in the entrance everything is blue from the sunlight coming through the ice.  Last I heard they stopped letting people into the glaciers because too many people got crushed from falling ice. 

Years later my wife and I were hiking to a similar ice cave on a different mountain.  As we where hiking people kept running past us with shovels.  When we got there we saw a helicopter and people going into the cave to rescue someone that got crushed.  We decided not to go in the cave at that point, haven't been in one since but I'm glad I got to do it once.

[Bryan]

More ice cave shots.

[hookstrapped]

Great stuff! 

[Bryan]

I didn't realize how much time we actually spent outdoors camping, hiking, fishing etc.  I guess that's because we didn't have video games to keep us glued to the TV.  We we're the last family in the United States to get a color TV but we did have a video game called Pong, it wasn't good enough to keep you glued to the TV.  So far I've gone through 1,900 slides so I'm past the half way point.  I took this week off so I'm going to try to do one carousel each day.  I'm sure I will miss a day or two but I should get through a lot of them. 

82 - In 1980 a crater opened up on top of Mount St. Helens and it started blowing steam and ash out the top.  We went down there to see it in late April that year.  A few weeks later, on May 18th, we were fishing off a pier in Seattle when we herd a loud boom.  It sounded like a large canon or a sonic boom.  It wasn't until we got into the car to leave that we heard that the mountain erupted.  We couldn't see it because it was a cloudy day but we did see many mushroom clouds after that as it continued to erupt for several months.  After the mountain calmed down and they opened the area around it again we went back to see the damage.  We still couldn't get very close but it was interesting.  This photo was taken in July of 1981, we're holding pumice rocks in our hands.  It turns out the place we went before the eruption was wiped out by mud flows, good thing we didn't put that trip off for a few weeks. 

12 - I'm pretty sure I took this picture since I think it was just the three of us on this trip.  This is at Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula.  Either my photo skills were improving a bit or it was just a happy accident.

16 - I finally caught a fish!  Or I finally got my photo taken with one.  It's a flounder, we used to catch a lot of them in the Puget Sound, kind of like a small halibut.  Dig those bell bottom jeans!






 

[Bryan]

I'm about 3/4 of the way through the slides, only 9 more carousels to go.  These are from 1982.

45 - Hiking in a lava tube at Craters of the Moon National Park in Idaho.

53 - My father on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.  That's me in the background.

55 - This is the first time my father allowed me to drive the car, the Mazda station wagon on the left.  He figured I couldn't hit anything out there, you can drive 100 miles in a straight line without hitting anything.  No land speed records were broken that day in the Mazda. 

 

[Bryan]

Making a strong push to finish this in the next week or two.  These are from 1982 and 1983.

93 - My grandfather in Mexico.  He had a place in San Carlos where he would park his RV during the winter.  We went down there for Christmas to visit him in 1982.  When I got back to school my Spanish teacher asked me to tell the class about Mexico.  I told them that everyone that wants your money speaks pretty good English.  My teacher didn't like that, I just barely passed the class.

59 - We stopped in San Francisco on the way back from Mexico.

70 - Bryan's closeup, starting to get a little fuzz on my face.

73 - My brother Darren with his big catch. 

87 - If you want to cool off in the summer just go to the Washington coast, bring a heavy coat.

[Bryan]

Another update, 1984.

44 - My brothers playing games on our new Franklin PC.  This was our second computer, it had two 5.25 inch floppy disk drives.  Of course we figured out how to play games on it.  My father actually got on the internet over the phone line with our rotary dial phone.  There wasn't much on the internet then, I just remember some chat rooms.  Our first computer was a Sinclair ZX81.  I thought it was pretty cool that I could write my name on the TV screen, that's about all I did with it.

62 - My brother bought this junky old Dodge Super Bee with a Hemi motor and fixed it up a bit then got rid of it for something else.  These things are worth a fortune now.

71 -  It took a while before they let the public get close to Mt St Helens after the eruption.  This was 4 years after the eruption.  They had to wait for it to be safe from eruptions and re build roads.  It was amazing how vast the blast zone was with the trees all laying down in the same direction.

72 - My father in the blast zone with the mountain steaming behind him. 

[Francois]

I've never seen a Franklin computer before. I wonder if it was a CP/M machine?
And the Sinclair definitely was something. It had one of the worst keyboards ever.

As for the super bee, these were the days when a car was really a car. And these things were not small either.

[Bryan]

I've never seen a Franklin computer before. I wonder if it was a CP/M machine?
And the Sinclair definitely was something. It had one of the worst keyboards ever.

As for the super bee, these were the days when a car was really a car. And these things were not small either.

The Franklin Ace 1200 was CP/M-compatible.  Franklin copied Apple computers and was sued for it, after that they stopped making computers.  My father later donated that computer to Paul Allen's Living Computers Museum.  He still has the Sinclair, I saw it in his basement recently.  He donated a few other old machines to a Microsoft club that codes on old computers, those nerds were pretty exited about getting them.

http://oldcomputers.net/ace1200.html

That Super Bee was a powerful beast but it's not very aerodynamic and it doesn't handle very good, especially by today's standards.  I remember the front end would start to lift up when you got it over 90 mph.

[Francois]

Yeah, but still, those cars could pin you to your seat and burn rubber in all four gears.
I have a friend who had a dodge with the same engine (I believe it was a Monaco). His wife was about 5 feet tall and one time when he was trying to impress her, she flew off her seat and landed in the back And then he got plenty of s*** from her as expected 

As for the old Sinclair, if you want to try it out be sure to check the voltage on the power supply before plugging it in. PSU's in old computers are not as well protected as on the new ones and can fry chips.

[Bryan]

These are from 1985 and 1986.

60 - In my High School Graduation gown with proud parents.

35 - One thing I'm getting from these slides is that my little brother killed a lot of fish.  He still does that today.

50 - Me at a camp site on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.  I hated that little green tent, I ended up using it on field trips when I was studying Geology in College.  My head hit one end and my feet hit the other.  High in the mountains I would wake up to a cold wet head and feet. 

89 - My new car, a 1971 Plymouth Duster.  I'm just getting home from College for Thanksgiving break with my Friend Keith.  Keith grew up a few houses down from me, we were roommates all the way through college.  That car may look like a muscle car but it was the slant 6 version, not the V8.  I had to get a run at hills, put the pedal to the metal and pray I made it to the top.  If I didn't make it I would have to go down and make another run at it.  It was a great day when I finally got a good paying job out of college and got rid of that thing. 

[02Pilot]

89 - My new car, a 1971 Plymouth Duster.  I'm just getting home from College for Thanksgiving break with my Friend Keith.  Keith grew up a few houses down from me, we were roommates all the way through college.  That car may look like a muscle car but it was the slant 6 version, not the V8.  I had to get a run at hills, put the pedal to the metal and pray I made it to the top.  If I didn't make it I would have to go down and make another run at it.  It was a great day when I finally got a good paying job out of college and got rid of that thing.

Ah, Mopar's Leaning Tower of Power. 170 or 225cid? That thing must have pretty tired if it wasn't hauling that car up anything short of a mountain, or the rear end had really high gearing.

My first car was a 73 Challenger. 318, 904 Torqueflite with the Slap-Shift. Sublime Green with OE Rallye wheels. I still miss that car sometimes, even though in many ways it was a steaming pile of crap. I probably have a picture of it somewhere.

[Bryan]

Ah, Mopar's Leaning Tower of Power. 170 or 225cid? That thing must have pretty tired if it wasn't hauling that car up anything short of a mountain, or the rear end had really high gearing.

My first car was a 73 Challenger. 318, 904 Torqueflite with the Slap-Shift. Sublime Green with OE Rallye wheels. I still miss that car sometimes, even though in many ways it was a steaming pile of crap. I probably have a picture of it somewhere.

It was a 170 and it had many problems that I couldn’t afford to fix since I was a poor starving college student.  It was fairly reliable though and got me back and forth across the state until I graduated.  I only got stranded in the middle of the Palouse once, had to replace the water pump along the side of a highway after hitchhiking into the nearest town. 

Sounds like a nice Challenger, my brother put a three lever racing shifter into the Super Bee. 

[02Pilot]

It was a 170 and it had many problems that I couldn’t afford to fix since I was a poor starving college student.  It was fairly reliable though and got me back and forth across the state until I graduated.  I only got stranded in the middle of the Palouse once, had to replace the water pump along the side of a highway after hitchhiking into the nearest town. 

Sounds like a nice Challenger, my brother put a three lever racing shifter into the Super Bee.

Nice would be overstating it, but it was entertaining in a loud, crude sort of a way. It wasn't especially fast, but the handling was so flawed that any sort of real speed made corners and braking mildly terrifying. It's no wonder I gravitated to BMWs once I realized that turning and attempting to stop were not necessarily supposed to be quite that frightening.

It stranded me a couple of times (carb failed internally, fuel filter jammed, fuel tank leaked) and was far from practical, but it came with a factory shop manual that allowed me to learn the basics of wrenching. I didn't have the money to take it to a shop, so I learned to fix it or I walked. In a way I owe that car's unreliability a lot for setting me on the path of learning how to be a competent mechanic.

[Francois]

At least it was able to go at some speed in a straight line.
My first car was an 81 K-car. Plymouth Reliant in the magnificent sick turtle green color. Base model with a depressive carburetor (vacuum leak) and slowly failing master cylinder. It had a mono AM radio (which my dad upgraded to mono FM), a leaking sunroof that would send tears into your eyes, bench seat in the front, no window cranks in the back. Also it had a defective thermostat so you'd freeze to death in the winter... Still it got me everywhere I wanted to for 20$ of gas every two weeks.

[Bryan]

One more real to go, I'll get it done this week. 

93 - Home for spring break with my brothers.  I think I see a few mullets.

33 - After my brother sold his Super Bee he bought a Plymouth Roadrunner, no pictures of that.  We were driving it down the highway with some friends when we heard a loud bang followed by the rear end lifting off the pavement.  I remember looking behind back and seeing a drive shaft rolling across the highway.  That car went straight to the junk yard and he bought this Alfa Romeo GTV.  The oil gauge didn't work and it had an oil leak, he just added oil on a regular basis.  One night after work we took it up to the pass to go skiing, apparently the oil leak got worse.  As I was driving it back we through an engine rod, that was then end of that car.  My brother doesn't have much luck with cars or motorcycles. 

21 - One year in college and my little brother turns into a hippie earth muffin.  He went crazy with the tie dye. 

32 - Just out of college I got a job and moved out.  I rented a small house with my older brother and a friend.  We had some wild parties in that house, probably why they didn't renew the lease after one year. 

[Bryan]

Done!!!  Not many pictures of me on the last real, by this time I had flown the coop.  This last reel covered 4 years so my father slowed down on the picture taking with all the boys gone but my mom went crazy with her new Polaroid camera. 

[Francois]

Well that was quite a job.
Which makes me think that I'll have to do that someday. I have a metal box full of old negatives from my grandpa, another box full of my mom's negatives and prints and several airequip metal slide holders from grandpa.... I guess I'd have about 6 to 8 months of work to scan all of it.......

[Bryan]

Well that was quite a job.
Which makes me think that I'll have to do that someday. I have a metal box full of old negatives from my grandpa, another box full of my mom's negatives and prints and several airequip metal slide holders from grandpa.... I guess I'd have about 6 to 8 months of work to scan all of it.......

My father just asked me when I want the box of negatives.  Maybe next winter...or the one after that.  Some advice I would give is to set up a good workflow and stick to it.  Divide it into manageable sets to do on a regular schedule.  Don't try to do to much at once, that will burn you out.  Doing 100 slide carousels was how I divided it up and that was a bit much even though I didn't scan every slide. 

[Francois]

I always find it funny in a way to realize how long it is to do even with 21st century tech...

[Bryan]

I'll throw a few more up here just for fun.  This was my dog Fritz, he's was a mutt we got from the pound in 1973.  I remember coming home from school and there he was.  I must have been in kindergarten or first grade when we got him, I was graduated from college when he passed away so he was there pretty much my entire childhood.

47 - Fritz as a puppy right after we got him, October 1973

59 - Fritz had some friends that came and went over the years.  Shen the boxer originally belonged to our cousins, they gave her to us when they moved to Australia.  Charlie "followed" my younger brother home one day.  We couldn't find out who she belonged to so he stayed with us.  July 1980

18 - Fritz loved to sit in this chair and look out the window.  1984

32 - I think he had some ear problems, October 1988.

38 - I think this was the last photo of Fritz, July 1990.

[Bryan]

A few random shots of me. 

98 - This is how I learned to beat up Hobo's

33 - Leading my brothers through the desert.

37 - I like cake.

18 - The nuclear family.

21 - Coming home from YMCA camp on Orcas Island.  If only these slides we're scratch and sniff, I'm sure they through me in the bath as soon as we got home.

That's the end of the slide show, you can wake up now.