Old Family Photos

John Hope Franklin wrote about the "Negro" in society, and he said that in some parts of the nation, there were black folks who were a part of "society." Either their skin color (more often than not) or their educational levels gave them entree into the hoity toity world of vacations, balls, college frats and sororities, and houses of their own.

My parents were teachers in a small, Southern town. They had been taking vacations since the 1940s. Of course, they always stayed with friends and family, but Fernandina Beach aka American Beach was my first vacation with them. When I see them sitting there so young and happy, I have to pinch myself. They never showed displays of affection in front of folks.

My Mother was a lady and my dad liked to think of himself as a hoodlum, but he really wasn't. They worked together for almost 60 years, and when death separated them, the pain in my father's face was so intense, I had to look away. My favorite memory of this couple involves my father looking at my mother as I looked at him. I watched his features soften and the color in his hazel warm as he looked at my mother's face. They were a team, and now I'm glad they're back together.






The Afro-American Motel was the crown jewel of American Beach--the part of Fernandina Beach that we could visit. My first trip there was as a six month old. Across the street from the motel was a house made like a ship--it had portholes and everything. When I returned at five, I used to watch that house for hours. It was one of the first houses I had seen that had a garage, so every time the car disappeared into the house, I was amazed.

My grandmother was born in Fernandina Beach, and I've traced her ancestors back two generations. She had a cousin named Harry Treye who only had arm, but Mr. Treye could do anything a person with two arms could do. We used to go to the Treyes whenever we visited Fernandina, and it was such a treat. It was a huge (from my pre-teen years) house with a wonderful front porch and a bathroom that was added later and was situated on the back porch.









Our days in Fernandina were spent on American Beach in the mornings and sight seeing in the afternoons. When I look at the pictures now, none are as touching for me as the one of my parents when they were young and almost carefree. I love their lineless faces--their vibrant skin--their ability to touch each other unabashedly. It is hard to see them so alive when I remember how they were when they left me.

Text by © Annye Refoe
in cooperation with William Schmidt who scanned the photos.

Father and car

Benny Persson from the beautiful province of Blekinge says: "This is a double exposure (probably deliberate) of my father and his car. Photographer unknown. Date: End of the 1950's."

the ambush

at the train station

Photo: Jan Bernhardtz

untitled

Photographer: Rebeca Martell

Just Different

Invited photographer of The F Blog Risk Hazekamp is one of the artists participating in this exhibition held at Cobra Museum of Modern art in Amsterdam;" 'Just Different!' is the challenging title of an art exhibition about sexual desire, gender and identity construction in the visual arts at the turn of the 21st century." Open 14 June to 21 Sept. For more: cobra museum

from a family album, Scotland

The photographer was my father, Daniel Hepburn. The girl is an unidentified child at my grandparent's old house in Scotland. - Darren Hepburn

King Edward

Potatoes offered, 10 kilos King Edward is 6 kronor.
Photographer ©Jan Berhardtz

red house

Photographer: Malin Hellesø

Ariel 1918

Fotograph Åke Jonsson 1918 Gräfsnäs

Social protection (understanding the Swedes)

photo: abeku

the mask

family album: view from a Fiat 600

My father, a passionate photographer, used to shoot with a second hand Agfa Silette (that has been my first camera when I was 10-12 years old). No light meter and focusing by guessing distances. It’s 1963 (one year before my birth). Two couples went for a trip in a winter day with my father’s second hand Fiat 600: my father Gian, his sister Anna Rosa, my mother Marilù and my uncle Franco.

During that trip he shoot two funny “portraits”. In the countryside downhill a big stone is put under the car wheel… an escaped danger for my mother, trustfully smiling looking outside the car-window. The picture of my aunt Anna Rosa strike me for her beauty almost like a movie star, but in that weird location looking at the wall (but… was her husband Franco hidden there?).

In both cases: one unattractive location, the car, a lonely woman inside looking out. It’s a scheme with quite a distance mood… but funny isn’t it? - Text: Paolo Saccheri, photos: Gian Saccheri

Ladies in the park

Photographer © Thomas Håkansson

untitled photograph

Photographer: © Rebeca Martell

lilla landet (the small country)

From a reflective photographic project. The photos depict current Sweden and will soon be released in a photobook called "Lilla landet".
photographer © Thomas H Johnsson
www.thomashjohnsson.se

Meeting two unknown, but well-known

photo: abeku

meeting photographers

The F Blog is continuosly working on strengthening the bonds between the "virtual" and the "physical" world. Well, sometimes it´s hard to keep them apart as our "real" lives seem to get more and more integrated to the virtual world. But the world is one..and why not have a look at some great photographers that we have met...in real life ( well...or interviewing via email)

Meeting: Graciela Iturbide
Selfportrait with fish © Graciela Iturbide

Micke Berg on Cafe Spuntino
Photo: Mikael Jansson

Meeting Elsa Dorfman
we actually met her via email, but it felt like for real!
self portrait

Meeting Markus Andersson
Photo: Ulla Larsson

Meeting Martin Parr
Photo: Joanna Kinowska

Meeting Angèle Etoundi Essamba
Photo: Mikael Jansson

Man and Plane
Photo Marcin Górski (from Meeting Marcin)

Manhattan story

When I am in Manhattan, I usually go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday morning, then go to a good deli--Marche on Madison--and get some food to take to the park. Somehow, it seems, I always end up sitting on the same bench. A couple of years ago, as I was finishing lunch, I looked across Central Park and saw a tall building with two towers. "That is where Mia Farrow lives," I thought. I remembered that Woody Allen lived directly across the park and that the two of them would talk on the phone looking at one another through telescopes. "This must be Woody Allen's building that I am sitting in front of," I ruminated as I got up to throw away my trash. And as I stood, I bumped into a small fellow walking on the sidewalk. It was Woody Allen. I am a fan, of course, but I do not like to bother people, so I said simply, "Oh, sorry." He looked at me through those heavy glasses, mouth slightly ajar, moving away without speaking. He was with his daughter/wife, Soon-Yi.

The next day, Sunday afternoon, I was going back to the apartment in which I was staying on the Upper East Side. Manhattan is beautiful then, like a quiet museum, like a movie set without a crew, lonely, deserted. I had crossed Park Avenue and was heading east, and as I turned a corner, I ran into a lone couple. We three were the only people to be seen. It was Wood Allen and Soon-Yi. They remembered me, it seemed, and began moving away like crabs stranded on a beach. A stalker, no doubt. "No, no!" I wanted to shout out, but I only moved along.

I told that story for years. This weekend, it received an update. It was Sunday, and I had just finished a visit to the Met (not Saturday, I know, but this was a holiday weekend), and had just finished lunching in the park. And walking back to my subway stop, I once again ran into Woody and Soon-Yi. I had a Leica M7 slung over my shoulder, and I thought about the F Blog. Still, I do not like to bother people and am not enamored by simple fame. Suddenly, though, I turned and followed to snap some photos as they walked. I felt creepy, like Paparazzi, but it was only from behind, I told myself. As I walked along, however, I had the impulse to photograph them face to face. Just as I caught them at the corner, however, the batteries in my camera went dead. I thought of all the purist who buy only mechanical cameras like the Leica MP. - text and photo ©William Schmidt

family album

My father, born 1943, used to develop and print film when he was younger. He told me this self-portrait was printed using an adapted bellows camera (which is his way of saying he screwed a perfectly working bellows camera to make his own enlarger). Years later, he taught me about the darkroom process. I had my own semiprofessional Durst enlarger and everything but I never was able to get a print as amazing as this one. - Mirko Caserta

from the Family album

My mother was a wonderful photographer. She died very young, but made quite a chronicle of our lives. This is my eldest sister, Betty, with a lamb, who has obviously gone around the tree a few times . . .

invited guest: Anna Onopiuk "Molly" (part 2)

more of Molly's works you may see in our former post

invited by Marcin Górski

F is for Family

This is my grandfather Carl S. Buchanan. Jaunty hat, enigmatic grin…external details that belie his true character. I met him once at a family reunion when I was a child and he never spoke. Just a perfunctory pat on the head as he turned back to his cigarette. Over the years I have heard stories about his life in Tennessee. He lived with my grandmother and their seven children in a small, rural town, sharing a tiny two-room shack. He was a moonshiner and a gambler…evading the law…a picturesque character… But then the other stories have surfaced, acts of cruelty too horrific to mention here. Sometimes we look back at family albums to understand where we came from. But we also look back to see what we have escaped…

(I'm not sure who took this picture but it appears to be a studio picture taken in the 40's or 50's)

silent lamb

photographer: Jan Bernhardtz

Einstein school

Photographer © Henrik Müller

From family archives

I received these lines from Emese Altnöder, Hungary; "the photographer unknown, on the picture my grandfather visible diving, a picture from the family archive."

On the F Blog we are open to all possible directions or categories of photography, helping us to explain what the magic of photography is about. We will continue to show photojournalism, realism, surrealism, modernism or any other "ism" related to photography you may think of or invent...yes even pictorialism! When it comes to technique we have pinhole photos, pictures made with large format cameras, digital, film etc. To us it is the image that matters, not the "category" or "technique" or the name of the photographer.

I think it is by time that we have a look into the family albums to see what they hold. Welcome to send pictures to our inbox. Please only send pictures that are in your possesion, it doesn´t matter if it is your old grandfather's album or some photo found in a shoebox etc. If you know about the photographer, give him or her credit. If not, you just name it "photographer unknown". Come to think of it (F)amily begins with F too! Stay tuned to the coolest photoblog around! There for Photography.

three photographs

Photographer © Alf Johansson