Sunday, August 8, 2010

Blast from the past

LBR Gary W. sent along a great Denver Post webpage today that shows the legendary US Library of Congress (LOC) "Bound for Glory" slide show.  I think anyone would enjoy and be moved by these photos.  They are simply awesome-purely and simply awesome.  I first saw them back in 2008.  The "Bound for Glory" show was created in early 2005 and hit the streets in late 2005, so I was clearly a few years late in "discovering" these legendary photos. These photos are still making the rounds as if they are a new release.  No, they are simply timeless, that's all.  It doesn't matter when your life path intersects these photos, they will be etched forever in your brain.  That's a fact.

When I first saw the photos in early 2008, I realized there were 1600 color pictures and 160,000 black and white pictures.  What to do?  Well, right off the bat, I knew I couldn't possibly peruse 160,000 pictures.  But 1600 seemed like a "doable" objective.  Afterall, it was the depth of the 2007-2008 Idaho Winter.  What else are you going to do?  So I went through ALL 1,600 photos.  I decided to take a common theme and make a small slide show from what I found in those photos.  On March 22, 2008, I published it in our Google Picasa website. It's only about 3 dozen pictures out of 1,600! You can click here to see it.

When Gary sent along the Denver Post's presentation of "Bound For Glory," it re-excited my love for these photos.  It's a great way to see some of the best of the best of those 1600 photos.  I remember each of them well as I was going through that collection.  Like I said, they get etched in your brain and you can't forget them even if you tried.  Click here to see the Post's site.  The Post has done a much better job of making the show "Bound For Glory" available than did the LOC itself.  Back in 2008 it was much easier to gain access to all of the public domain photos.  Yeah, they are all still available but you have to jump more hoops to see them easily than I did back in 2008.  Go figure.  Anyway, click here for the LOC's webpage on the "Bound For Glory" show.  If you surf around from links on the above page, you might eventually find a portal to all 1600 color photos.  It's worth the effort and, if you have nothing better to do, I'd heartily recommend that you look at ALL 1,600 of them.  Each and every one of them is truly amazing.  There are no duds.  It's easily one of the finest photographic representations of America both during the pre-war, post-depression phase as well as during the early war mobilization phase.  Prepare to be amazed!

Thanks, Gary!

Cheers, jp

PS--Ironically, I picked out 2 of the 70 photos from "Bound For Glory" for my own slide show without knowing that were the LOC's top picks, too.  I've put one of my choices in common with the show at the top of this post.  My other 3 faves from the LOC's 70 top picks out of the 1600 photos are below.

1 comment:

Marti Spudboater said...

The Regal Whiskey and Jax beer sgins along with Hires Root Beer really brought back memories of my childhood trips to the Missouri Ozarks where my grandparents lived in Republic, and then Deepwater--aptly named since it's under Harry Truman Reservoir now courtesy of TVA and the Army Corps of Engineers. There remains rural area backwaters that still have remnants of this look. In the 60's my great aunt and uncle still weren't electrified and had a windmill for water, kerosene lanterns,and were dirt poor. They would take me down to the feed store where you could go get a bottle of Hires Root Beer out of the cooler where you slide the bottles out. They had pigs, chickens, cows and somehow managed to get by, but just barely. And they had hearts of gold. Thanks for restoring a memory for me. Even though that photos is likely from the 30's era Depression, most people in the rural Midwest and South were still like that well into the mid-1960's. Funny how folks want to live off the grid again. But only if they've got satellite uplinks to keep them connected, running water, solar power etc.