Monday, August 20, 2012

The Picture Within - The Picture Within


Over on my Picture Post Blog I am currently featuring some scans of medium format negatives I took about thirty or forty years ago. I tend to scan an envelope of negatives per day (12 negatives in total) and it is always a thrill discovering what will emerge when the scanner has made its pass and displayed the resulting digital image - an image which has been unseen by me for decades. In some ways it is the closest thing to seeing an image slowing develop onto a sheet of bromide paper whilst sloshing around in a developer bath back in the days of the darkroom. Sometimes there will be photographs of friends and relations, sometimes places. All bring back memories, and often the process is multi-layered because there are hidden images, pictures within pictures, and even pictures within pictures within pictures. The photograph above was taken on the sands at Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire back in the early 1980s And there is a picture within.


And the picture within is a tribute to the hardiness of the British holidaymaker, the seaside visitor determined to head for the seashore even if thick coats are the order of the day.


And even when the wind blows in from the east, straight from the Ural Mountains via the Baltic, and the sun is dimmed by clouds like a 40 watt bulb inside a grease-proof bag, even then the hardy holidaymakers still buy their ice cream cornets.

15 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:34 PM

    I agree with John! Suit, shirt and tie :-)

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  2. Is there a hidden dip in the beach between the group of ice cream eaters and the ice cream van or is that person half buried?
    Lots of details to savour here, wonderful.

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  3. Hello Alan:
    Wonderfully evocative and beautifully described. Memories brought back of a chilly, if not actually cold, Sunday School outing to Sandbanks, but in the 1950s. Little changes.

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  4. That wind coming straight off the Urals also hits Lincoln where I did my teacher training. I wonder if that's why Skegness was 'so bracing' too.

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  5. Just found some old negatives. Gonna try scanning. I might be back for some directions.
    QMM

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  6. And not a windbreak in sight.

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  7. Those were the sands of my youth - and the wind!

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  8. Really different clothing warn at the beach in those days. Yes picture within a picture c an tell us so much more.

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  9. What I'd give for just a snippet of the conversation.

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  10. what nice pictures I enjoyed my mo have someones like this I love the tie too:)

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  11. Ah..I love it..treasures of times gone by:)

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  12. Excellent picture - though I like the square format best. Squares are much underrated as format and its a pity that most modern cameras don't have that option.

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  13. Excellent photo...love the various venues within...

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