Lost America Found

Portrait - from a Glass Plate found c1960 outside Camera Craft in Barrie.

Portrait – from a Glass Plate found c1960 outside Camera Craft in Barrie.

Toronto. Today we have a multitude of old photos – nameless people and places, Some faded, some still pristine like the sample at the left.

When I was a kid in Barrie, Joe Waterer had a camera store downtown called Camera Craft. One day (c1960) I noticed stacks of glass plate negatives by his store next to his garbage bins. Needing a small strip of glass for something I was building, I took two home with Joe’s approval.

Although a bit soft as was the fashion back then, the plates had such good contrast that I kept them. Either Joe or more likely his predecessor had exposed the plates in a studio setting. In another century (this one) I scanned the plates and reversed them to show the positive view of the young gentleman in the portrait.

If you are fascinated by old images, have a look here at a site my friend George Dunbar discovered. The site is called  Lost America Found and is managed by Alan Radecki of California on Google’s blogsite.com which seems to be replicated here on Google’s Canadian blog site, blogspot.ca.

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