Colorized Photos Retinted and Refined

I recently went through my file of colorized photos and found this series. They're all photographs I shot in 1980 with my trusty Nikon film camera. They were taken at car shows, used car lots, and wherever I found cool cars. Originally colorized a few years ago, some of these images I had limited myself to just two colors. This time I refined all the images with countless shades and colors. I think they're going to be great to print out and then cut up and used in my future wooden pieces. Cut into squares they'll be great parts of some checkerboard paintings I'm working on. Reposting from my other blog: We can all use a dose of color right now!

Instrument panel of the 1959 Edsel. And this was toned-down from 1958!

Postwar Studebaker Starlight coupe.

Postwar Cadillac 75 Formal Sedan trunk logo.

The front fender of the postwar Caddy 75 Formal Sedan.

The front doorstep on the Cadillac 75.

Mid 1950s Mercedes Benz 300 SL trunk lid trim.

 Early Thirties Auburn hood ornament. This was a boattail speedster.

Step plate for a mid 1920s Buick.

 

Hood trim on a 1956 Ford.

1950 Ford coupe. 

 Very rare Hudson Italia coupe—red, white, green, and blue.

 1955-56 Packard senior interior. Note the pushbutton transmission quadrant on the dash.

 Early 1930s Packard windshield decal.

 1953-54 Studebaker hood with V8 trim piece Beautiful design!

Playing around I placed my Cadillac's loose chrome script on the grille of my Celica. Photo taken in '83.

Limited Palette: A Touch of Blue

Walking around on a recent 15°F day, I limited myself to a "touch of blue" in my photos. I like to give myself "rules" to follow sometimes as if a school assignment. I found it wasn't that difficult to find blue in the middle of winter.

A frozen stack of Levis in a frozen and icy pile of snow gave me plenty to work with. I shot more than 20 photos of just this incongruous pile of discarded jeans.

 

Plastic snowshovel and Pink Gardens' porch clapboards kept the palette to a minimum without white this time.

Twilight tints the snow cyan and the lonely blue garden globe in the upper right could be Earth from an icy comet or asteroid whizzing by. Stark and empty woods and the cold comfort of the setting winter sun give no warmth.

Back to the limited palette of the clapboards photo but this time the warmth of the spectrum comes from the Levi Strauss label on these jeans.

 

Snowshovel bisecting the now-frozen snow. Many of the snowpiles have a distinctly blue tint when you peer into them. They're so saturated with water they're tinted with bluish and greenish hues just the way some icebergs are.

Wandering Around Inside Recently

 

Some of my antique dolls sitting around resting and picking out their next book they want read to them.

This begonia is normally dark red in the summer, but it changes to a pale pink during the winter.

Fake pearls but real silver is the thrifty New England way for a certain generation, lol.

Vintage games and a 19th century toy gun wait for patiently for children that will never come back.

My shamrocks, Oxalis, prefer living on the porch in the summer, but they're suffering through the winter in my kitchen fairly well.

Working  at the computer most of the time, this Matlock marathon was a great boon this past weekend. I could watch older TV series like this all the time. Above, Andy Griffith and Don Knotts sure had a long history of acting together. 

My stuffed "Pop-n-Fresh" sports a hand crocheted cap these days. He looks thrilled about it!

 Vintage stuffed rabbit on the other hand prefers equally vintage silk scarves.

This wicker sewing box dates to the early 1950s and was bought in Japan. The interior is bright red satin, stuffed to use as a pin cushion, and the box is full of period sewing items.

Antique Minnesota brand sewing maching is home to all sorts of collectibles these days. My art surrounds it on all the walls.

Corvette is apparently in the hands of Uncle Sam these days, lol. Needs dusting. Spring Cleaning is not that far away, but there's no way I'm going to open a window yet these days!

My three-violet garden is flowerless right now, but has grown to a full 18-inches in width. I'm sure as soon as the days grow longer giving them more light, they'll all burst into flowers.

Vintage Ibelo Monopol Lighter

I've recently begun doing new scans of some of my cooler items. There are 14,587 I'd like to do first, lol. This is a vintage Ibelo lighter, engraved stainless steel from what I can tell, around 4-inches by 3-inches. The company is German, and I'm guessing my dad probably bought it in the late 1950s while we were stationed there. Love the art deco pattern! It just needs a small pin at the top to align the section that pivots, but I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

The Front Yard Ten Years Apart

The Depression was taking its toll in this mid-1930s photo of my family's home, the 1766 Daniel and Charity Leete House. The house needs painting and some repairs. The lawns are unkempt, trees overgrown. My then 17-18 year old mother runs from the camera, lol.

 

By 1946, just postwar, some optimism was returning to the family and the country, even though my grandfather had died in '42 on that very lawn. But the house had been painted, the lands re-landscaped, and all the damage from the historic hurricane of 1938 repaired. This is my aunt Hoohoo, then 20 years old.

National Little Yellow Car Day!

Not really a national day, lol, but I felt like this table needed a bit of brightening up today. I walked around and found a bunch of yellow cars that were just right. I also added those cute little yellow vintage banana salt-and-pepper shakers.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow. Oy.

 

Looking out my livingroom window, facing west, in the middle of our most recent snowstorm. Cardinals nest in this cedar. That's the road to town going off in the middle of the photo.

This vigilant hawk hung around outside my livingroom window for close to an hour before flying off in search of victuals.

Looking out eastern-facing kitchen window, over the flat roof of the apartment below. Ancient tree resembles an elephant from certain angles.

Midstorm, looking out at the train tracks. The trains develop comet tails when it snows. The snow clouds swirl maddeningly creating flame- and smoke-like whirls and eddys.

Twilight and it was still snowing. Ceiling and lights reflected in window.

Vintage 1939 license plate frame reading "Guilford" reflected in the glass. Snow was really coming down at this point.

 

My 36-inch tall bamboo plant reflected in the glass.

Flowers in the Attic

The plants in the attic are wintering over just fine. I have some begonias in bloom, above, and a few sprigs of Christmas cactus have flowered. Whenever a stem comes off a cactus I root it and stick it in any plant with empty dirt! They have very small roots and can exist with almost any other plant. They're doing quite well this winter.

 

 

Randomness

 

Self portrait, 1983. Cut paper, Rapidograph pen on cardboard, covered with Saran Wrap since new.

 

USS Goodrich, 831, Destroyer. Commissioned at just about the end of WW2, this was one of my Dad's ships. He was in the Navy from 1938-50 and then the Army until 1961. Image faded from hanging in the sun for years.

Lithographed letter from the LBJ White House, 1964-68. For some reason, LBJ sent out letters like this thanking deceased servicemen for their service. My grandfather died at home in 1942, and was a veteran of the first world war. While the signature is printed, not handwritten, the gold eagle at the top is nicely embossed. Faded/discolored from being framed and hung on a wall for decades.

 

This print of a WW1-era Fokker biplane probably dates back to only the 1960s or '70s. After taking it out of this wooden frame, I've decided it's actually probably cut from a calendar and then framed. Probably a garage-sale item. My parents used to love to go out weekends and find "bargains" around town, lol. I love the colors on this image, probably the reason my dad bought it. He loved colors as much as I do.

 

One of my mother's keepsakes, this 1938 Ice Follies program has lovely typography and period photography. This would have been my mom's nursing school days in prewar New Haven. She loved to go to the theater, events like these Ice Follies, restaurants, you name it.