for you photography buffs

Frank Fusco

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Mountain Home, Arkansas
With the passing of my 96 year old aunt this week, I got to searching for old photos of her. While doing so, I found this picture of my grandfather. The original from which I scanned the attached pic is printed on a metal plate. The plate is only about 2"X3" and the scanned portion is about 1/3 the area. I am amazed it has survived so well. I'll have to do some research to find the approximate years metal plates were used. He was a young man in the pic but I don't have any bio information on him to help fix a date. He died in 1963. I'll surmise the shot was of him in his 20s and the picture taken about 1900. The original is very dark but through the magic of PhotoShop I was able to preserve his image.
 

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That is very cool Frank!

My mother is really into the whole Genealogy thing, and she says that pictures are very worthwhile, as they put faces to names.

Great job on keeping that image alive! :thumb:
 
Very cool. We've got boxes of old photos we need to scan.

In the day and age of Digital photos, there's just something so precious about the old prints....
 
Very cool Frank.:thumb: My Dad has an old recording when they were made on wire. He had it transfered to tape by the broadcasting corporation who still had in their museum and old machine to play the wire recording.

Brent thats what i was thinking of using the fuji scanner you mentioned you used for the magazines. I got a flat bed but dang it takes way to long to scan and feed. I looked into online services but i dont want to risk loosing a picture or dealing with poor quality.

Anyone had any experience in this department that would help. Charlie??
 
Even though the flatbeds are slow, I think they are the only way if you want to have decent quality. The autofeed ones are slick, but they are meant more for documents than photos.

The problem is the photo might 'twist' and get skewed as it goes through the scanner. That can't happen on the flatbed...
 
my grandfather had a brownie 8mm movie camera and took tons of 8mm film in the late 50s and 60s.
In the 80s, I converted alot of it to video using my video camera and the brownie projector, and 2 mirrors.
Its nice to have all those family members on film.
 
That's a pretty cool picture there Frank, I can see where you got your good looks....:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:


It's kinda fun to do some of the genealogy... I've tried to trace my family some, but got lost in the 1850 census... haven't gotten past that... but haven't tried in a couple of years either... need to get back into it.

A cousin traced my mother's name back to mid 1600's when they landed in Virginia... and then back into Middle England..... at one time the family owned the manor near Appomattox that Grant used as his headquarters when he took Lee's surrender at the court house. I think it's been donated to U.S. as a park/national monument or something. My branch of the family migrated westward and wound up in Texas and Oklahoma..

You should try to trace your grandfather... it's interesting with all the ancestry.com info and the Mormons keep a very extensive library of genealogy in Utah... I don't know what their fees are, but have been told it's very extensive.
 
Very cool pic, Frank. :thumb: Any idea where it was taken?

No. I have virtually no biographical info on him. Sadly, it wasn't until years after his death I learned he was not really my biological grandfather. We were very close and I am his namesake. There had been divorces and remarriages but 'back then' such things were not discussed. He did spend most of his life in the Chicago area even though his family roots were in Ontario.
A discovery like this is very important to me.
He would always remind me, "Us Frank's, we need to stick together. There aren't very many of us."
I like to tell that story whenever I meet a Frank.
 
Very odd timing on this. Just talked to my dad last night. He's a big genealogy buff. Due to similar circumstances to Franks, I too had never seen my biological maternal grandfather. My dad sent me a scan of the only known picture of him last night. It was striking to see some of the facial features.

In this day of digital imaging, I think people have more pictures taken of them, but will they be around 50 years from now?
 
In this day of digital imaging, I think people have more pictures taken of them, but will they be around 50 years from now?

Funny you mention that. I was just thinking about what I had done with some cd's that I copied a whole lot of pics to from one of my first digital camera's. I read somewhere that you should try to transfer your data at least every 5 - 10 years to new media. 1) because the advances in data storage change so often, you want the storage device to be compatible with current technology. 2) digital storage does deteriorate over time.

It's always good to keep multiple copies, verify the data is good after copying and periodically, and keep them in different locations (safe deposit box, house, relative's house, etc.).
 
Very odd timing on this. Just talked to my dad last night. He's a big genealogy buff. Due to similar circumstances to Franks, I too had never seen my biological maternal grandfather. My dad sent me a scan of the only known picture of him last night. It was striking to see some of the facial features.

In this day of digital imaging, I think people have more pictures taken of them, but will they be around 50 years from now?

My post originally was intended only to dramatize the changes in photography and imaging from 'back then' to current times. However, I do appreciate the interest in my grandfather.
FWIW, my scanner is part of an all-in-one HP printer. $60.00 from Wal-Mart. It is an excellent machine. I have had quite a few printers and scanners over the years and this one is as good as any. Downside is the HP software, not user friendly. And the print cartridges are small. Other than that it is fine. I do my photo editing with PhotoShop Elements, a very old version.
For a guy who started photography with a 4x5 Speed Graphic and film slides, I'm a total fan of digital these days. There are a few downsides I miss with my mid-range camera (full manual control and ability to capture action) but it is part of me and I love it.
 
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