It's remarkable how well most old film transfers to digital format. I've recently been using a dedicated negative and transparency (slide) scanner to digitise photographs taken in the 1970s, and I'm very pleased with most of my output. The colour positive slides (Agfacolour in the case of the example shown above) produce a pretty good scanned image that requires a little work on the colour balance, some cleaning of blemishes (usually persistent dust) and a little sharpening. The facility to do multiple passes of the scanner head to neutralise any noise generated in the scanning process doesn't have to be used too often, but when it's needed it works well.
I've chosen this photograph to put on the blog not only because I've been working on family shots, but also because it exemplifies compositional characteristics that have persisted in my photography since my early days - particularly repetition, simplification and spots of colour. It shows the loggia of the Stoa of Attalos, part of the Agora in Athens, Greece. The original building was destroyed in 267AD and what is shown is the reconstruction built in the 1950s that houses a museum. The shot is one of two composed in this way with a figure breaking the repetition: in the second shot that figure is me, and the photograph was taken by my wife.
photograph and text © Tony Boughen
Photo Title: Repetition - Stoa of Attalos, Athens, Greece
Camera details etc: My memory of which camera I used at this time is a little hazy. Was it the Olympus OM-1n or the more humble Zenit E? It will take a little more scanning and remembering to work that one out.
