Then and Now

About fifteen years ago my sister gave me a box of photographs and negatives she'd found in the basement of the house we grew up in, and where she and her husband have lived since the mid 1980's. The pictures all seemed to have come from the same camera, or at least a camera that used the then-standard 120 format film. This made a negative that was about two and a quarter by three and a quarter inches. The prints were only a little bigger, since they were contact-printed, rather than enlarged.

This particular one caught my eye.

Sagamore Hill was almost instantly recognizable to me. I've spent many hours wandering the grounds there, and the house itself is quite distinctive. I don't know who took this picture of my dad, or even when, though some quick research reveals that the Sagamore Hill house was first opened to the public in 1953. It's possible my parents came up here one summer day, although this is the only picture they took. Maybe it was the last one on the roll.

I didn't have a problem with running out of film, however. In fact, I brought about half my kit; along with a tripod and flash bracket. The landscape has changed over the last half-century, the tree shading me was most likely a sapling in my father's day, if it was there at all. The tree in front of the house, at the left edge of each picture, is a different one today than in the 50's. In fact, I was talking to the chief of maintenance on my way out, and he told me that that tree is going to be taken down this summer; it's too close to the house.

I may try this one again soon. I was there in the early afternoon, from the looks of the original I need to be there early in the morning, nine or ten o'clock I think. Of course, I'll also need a light gray three-button suit.