DSLR Photography Forum

Like a wood fire in a room, photographs - especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past - are incitements to reverie.
- Susan Sontag

Things that are old often have charm and character that they lacked when they were new. Old items may be rare, they may be changed by time, or they may have accumulated meaning that wasn't there in the beginning. As art and as documents, photos age well; documenting age through art is where photography excels.

For this assignment, look for the story that something old is telling, and share it here.

At the moment I am custodian of a large collection of cards that date from 1900-1916, they are in excellent condition and a time capsule of the sentiments of those years.

#1 I thought this was sweet


#2 This card is a cutout and sort of 3D, quite beautiful, I covered the card with a white sheet of paper to prevent the lid of the scanner showing through.


#3 I had to laugh when I came upon this one!


Hope you enjoy them,

These are beautiful Pat!
How lucky you are for having all this priceless memories...

Pat, those are great. I love it when people come up with something that I would never expect for an assignment.

I've had a lot of old things in my life recently. The desert sun especially seems to weather wood and brick:



My brother and I went to Nevada to pick up a truck he had bought on ebay. It's originally a 1959 Chevy Suburban, but has had a lot of work done to it to make it into a desert "crawler". It's a common use for 4x4's in this part of America, but none of them looked like this:



And sometimes age is a matter of behaviour. The gas gauge didn't work, and we were never quite sure what sort of milage we were getting or even how big the tank was. This photo was taken 508 miles into a 2500 mile trip. (note that the truck's wearing a more civilized pair of sneakers.)



And finally, I took a new photo for this assignment. It's a little souvenir that I picked up in a pawn shop for $10 while whiling away a few days in Nevada. (The truck was in the shop. Repeatedly.)



The Buck 110 was introduced in 1964, and is probably the most copied knife in the world. It remains Buck's most popular model. It's so well established that when I brought it home, my partner recognized it as being the same model that her father, an officer with the Ministry of Natural Resources, used to carry when she was a child. This particular one was made between 1972 and 1974, making it older than I am.

I don't know how I missed this one: "The Old High School" in Fallon, Nevada:

I like th high school shot Matt - nicely composed.

This weekend the local transit service was running a shuttle with one of its vintage streetcars. I've lived in this city for 33 years, but this was the first time I was on one. I grabbed some quick shots outside for a panorama as I couldn't get it all in with my 22mm-e wide angle.



I have some photos from the inside, too, but they'll have to wait until tomorrow.

A group of four old passenger cars were parked at the station the other night.
Kind of banged-up on the outside from 60-70 years of service but still earning their keep in private charter runs.
These two are Santa Fe cars Vista Canyon and Diablo Canyon.





The Vista Canyon was built by Pullman in 1947 for the historic Santa Fe Super Chief passenger trains, while the Diablo Canyon was built by Budd in 1937 and is the oldest Budd-Built car certified to run on Amtrak.
All four of the cars I saw that night are owned by Cruising By Rail and are available for charter trips.

Volkswagen Beetle: Conceived in the 1930s, and eventually put into mass production by a British army officer after the war. Mechanically not that remarkable, but the rear-engined, air-cooled Love Bug remained in production for more than 50 years. With some 21.5 million made, it's been one of the world's most popular cars ever.

I found this Bettle last Sunday. I saw it so well cared and so stylish, I started taking pictures, then I saw a man that stood up close to me, when I finished, he went to the car and opened it... He was the owner. so proud that someone was taking pictures of his car...

Hey all, this is an old bridge that used to take you across the San Juan River on Vanvouver island

This was shot inside a coffee shop in Bellingham WA that I visit every time I go up there. Originally this was the end of the building but it was added on to and the owners decided to keep the advertisement up as a piece of early Americana art.

here is a little series for the something old theme:

they were taken at a place called Port Arthur in Tasmania. It is one of the oldest convict prisons in Australian history, and is where some of the first ever Europeans came to Australia as convicts. The buildings and hallways and cells that you can look around still give off a very eeiry feeling, and really take you back and let your mind imagine what life must have been like back then when the prison was active.

Very nice B&W shots, Luke - particularly the first 2. They show a lot of atmosphere.