Vintage Family Photos #1

I guess because of my chosen career, in the past decade, there has been a gradual shift in my family, where I have become the keeper of the family's archive of old negatives and miscellaneous photo prints. My parents still have most of the photo albums they made throughout the years, though I have a couple of my baby albums here now, but the doubles, the negatives, and the very random have ended up with me. We're talking about photos from at least the 1930s on, and with two hobbyist grandfathers, that's a lot of imagery!

I'm still working on the best way to store them - I haven't even begun to think about actually sorting or labeling them - but in the meantime, I'm excited to debut my new occasional blog post, "Vintage Family Photos". The idea behind scanning in some chosen shots each week and posting them to the blog is that it will not only encourage me to look through these and enjoy them, as well as share them with family and friends, but it will hopefully also reinforce the importance of photos to everyone's families, whether blurry, faded snapshots or professional prints. I'm hoping some fun topics will come up sort of organically, too - maybe some of my grandmother's photos from the 30s and 40s will inspire thought about identical twins (she was one), or old black and white film processes?

So, here goes.

The first star of the show is my baby brother, Austin!



(above photo: Austin's official preschool photo - love the fire chief touch! - photographer unknown, You and Me Preschool)

Isn't he adorable? So, okay, maybe he's not a baby anymore... he's 25 and lives in New York City, and is a fantastic jazz drummer.

Here we are welcoming him home. I love this photo - it's my grandmother, me, and brand new Austin. My mom told us that my older sister and I that were going to have a brother or sister on my birthday (August 1st, 1982?), and I remember looking up from the Raggedy Anne board game I had just received (love that Camel With The Wrinkly Knees!) and said, "I want a brother baby." So I guess I was pretty thrilled to meet him - don't I look it?



Please also note the fresh early 80's clothes on everyone!

Babies do cry a lot, but I don't remember complaining.



(We had that satiny, green comforter for years - it finally fell apart after I took it in my junior year of college.)



Don't you love how happy my mom looks? Nice haircut, mom.

Finally, a jump ahead 15 years or so - I have no idea what is going on in this Polaroid, but I think there was a lot of fake blood involved.



Teenage boys are very different from baby brothers.

Happy weekend!!