Two new images have been added to our restored Salem prints on-line listing. “Abandoned” is a photo of a building that was already old when the image was shot around the turn of the century. Light, shadows and textures enhance the effects of New England weather on this structure. “Champions” is a 1922 photograph of the Naumkeag baseball team with their championship trophy.
A whole new page has been added to the Restored Print tab for our Swampscott images. Most of these are restored from glass plate negatives dating to around 1850. The larger format and fine grain of these plates make them excellent original image sources. The images are captured on a high resolution flatbed scanner, retouched to balance exposure, repair damaged and missing areas (sometimes piecing together broken segments), and then reproduced as digital archival prints.
Two images were posted today, two of my favorites. “Puritan Elms” is a restored glass plate of the graceful Elms that once lined Puritan Lane. Most were destroyed by storms. This image hearkens back to a more leisurely road and a simpler time. The “Blaney Beach Fish House” print is a photo of Swampscott’s iconic Fish House when it was a lot newer. It’s a great example of how much things have changed and how much they look the same. Even a quick glance and you know the image: the Fish House. But look closer… no dock, no parking field, no benches; horse and buggy parked in foreground…the same, only quite different.
This print is also one that features “ghosts” on the beach. The long exposures required on these glass plates usually failed to capture people and things moving quickly but sometimes created these “ghosts” of people walking very slowly, or boats being pulled out by the tide. Actual prints are clear enough to see details of structures all along the beach.