Family Photo Friday

I have been lucky enough that my family has let me hold onto the family "archives" (aka random cigar boxes of awesome memories) and let me take on the task of organizing/sorting/tracking down/labeling etc. However, I know that this project could go on forever and I may never organize the boxes if I don't get off my tail and get things done. So, as part of this project (aka the lower the ridiculous guest bed project) AND as part of my 101 things goal of "publishing" a rough version of the Majdic family history, I'm starting family photo Friday here on the blog. Basic premise: I will share old family photos on Fridays thereby curbing my slacker nature. These posts will be full of random tidbits, probably some museum ranting, and lots of awesome pictures. Don't worry, Saturday through Thursday will still be days for pictures of Matthew I promise :-)

Sooo, to kick it off, here are some gems I found today:

First, this is my great-grandfather on my mother's side, George Hinkle. Hooray for this side of the family labeling pictures as the back of this picture reads:

This is dad taken fair day the little folks are the grade school band just as the parade was about to start

There was no date but my guess is that this was taken the year my grandfather ran for county commissioner.

And here's an adorable one of my mother and her two sisters. My mom is the cutie-pie on the far right.

I'm pretty certain the only reason I have these pics is from when I was putting together my grandmother's memoirs and I'm fairly certain once I scan them I need to return them (sorry grandma!). Both my grandmother, her sister and her sister-in-law have amassed AWESOME family genealogies and archives with lots of labeled photos. This made it easy-peasy for me to join the Daughters of the American Revolution as grandma has traced our lineage back to patriot Thomas Harrison.

On the other side of the family, many of the photos are labeled as well. . . unfortunately many of the old photos are labeled in a mix of Slovenian and Austrian that we have yet to uncode. Before grandma passed we sat down and labeled some pictures, but I should have paid a little more attention to detail. This is my great-grandfather and grandmother's wedding photo. Unfortunately, I didn't write down who else is in the photo so I'm still trying to match faces. In some of the older photos I've come across, even if it's labeled regarding the wedding, it's not exactly crystal clear who the bride and groom were.

And last but not least, someone shared this blog from the Denver Post on Facebook the other day. It's a look at part of the Library of Congress collection of photos from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information and are some of the only color pics taken of the effects of the Great Depression. You probably are most familiar with this FSA/OWI photo:

The emotion, the facial expression, the dirt, everything about it speaks volumes, but I do wonder if the photo would have the same impact and feeling of direness if it were in color.

Anyway, I played around with some of the color images below to see how much my of the emotion of a photo can come from the coloring. It's amazing how much life the color red brings to a photo and how much its conversion to dark black in B&W changes it. Even the way light plays off the facial expressions changes.

*All photos below are from the Library of Congress Farm Security Administration Collection.*

Anyway, it definitely makes me wonder what stories our family photos might tell if they were in color. Maybe if they were in color at least the family wedding photos wouldn't look as somber as they do. See you next Friday for more photo fun!