I couldn’t have foreseen as a young photographer that I would logically inherit and hold the family photographs. It was somebody’s wisdom. They turned out to be gems of photography and a
unpolished view of history. I am now age fifty-four and my contributors are few.
The collection spans five generations and most of the history of photography. Most images arrived with a colorful hand me down story, some only carried a single clue inscribed in the margin or stamped on the back. The oldest images are one of a kind and others are derived from old and dangerous nitrocellulose negatives. Some were only in my hands long enough to scan them to digital. The color work from the sixties is fading fast. There are beautiful hand-tinted images, Polaroids, Kodachromes and the grainy 110. The images have been restored to taste and are posted in non-chronological order
These are my relatives and the people who crossed our paths. They have this great story. Here they set sail on the ocean of the web.
Harry Snowden
Westward
Mason, Michigan
1929
The depression was not yet in full swing. My grandfather Wilson needed to travel to Colorado for summer courses that would allow him to teach back in Michigan. From left to right: Great uncle Brewster ( age 15 ), my grandfather Harry R. Wilson, Aunt Bobbie, my grandmother Winifred Wilson, my mother Shirley Wilson and my great aunt Margaret ( age 13 ). I cannot imagine what it would have been like to travel cross country in 1929. Love the camping gear strapped to the fenders.
I have another imagine from this same cross country adventure. It is located here: Feeding the Bears - Yellowstone National Park
Photographs from the collection of Harry Snowden
The Day Job
Flamingo Motel - c. 1951
Las Vegas, Nevada
Mom’s very cool day job, swimming in Johnny Weissmuller’s aqua show at the Flamingo in Vegas. Had to be more exciting then anything involving a name tag!
Photographs from the collection of Harry Snowden
Thank You!
Parkview Drive
Plymouth, Michigan
1959
A very old slide of my first house. It has that retro deterioration look that is a popular processing trick in digital photography. I’m inside…cloth diapers I’m sure.
Photographs from the collection of Harry Snowden
Your invited to visit my photography blog: WAYOUTWEST
Women in a wrinkled dress
Unknown
ND
3-3/8” x 5-3/8”
Postcard back without marks. There are no clues other that it is exactly the same style as a picture of my grandmother in 1917. I’m told these images were commonly taken at dance halls. No one can ID the women for me. It came to me in the collection so she must have been a relative or a close friend of my grandparents.
Photographs from the collection of Harry Snowden
Live from the Moon
Sault Suite Marie, Michigan
July 20, 1969
Brownie Hawkeye Super 27 + Kodak VP 127 roll film
3-1/8 “ x 3-1/8” print
Photography by Harry Snowden
This was the day the world stopped to watch TV. Vietnam still raged and screamed in the back of our minds but for this moment we were free. Wish I still had the Super 27.
Photographs from the collection of Harry Snowden
Puppeteers
Lansing, Michigan
1938
5 x 7 inches
Photography by Hulbert
Allen Street School still operates as a grade school on Kalamazoo street. That is my Mother, age 12 years, standing on the chair.
Photographs from the collection of Harry Snowden
