Images from negatives of long, long ago.
In the spring of 1962, Ann and I had been dating for about six months and this was about the time I gave her an engagement ring. I was 21 and she was 20. I was a Junior at the University of Arkansas and Ann was attended a Business School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On this day we had been strolling the campus at the University of Arkansas, just passing time, when these photos were taken. In the photo, Ann is sitting on the Tau Beta Pi 'Bent' in front of Old Main. These photos were some of the last made with the Kodak Signet 40 before it was stolen.
The photo of me was taken on 127 roll film with a square negative format. It was probably Ann's camera. I trimmed the negative to fit the 35mm scanner. I was posing at the corner of the Student Union on campus. We were apparently dressed up for some special event.
I can't find 'mole cricket' in my dictionaries, but this is a picture of one. I dug it up while digging a small vegetable garden. It was so unusual and rare, I wanted a picture of it. I placed it and some dirt in a small glass dessert bowl and photographed it indoors. I then returned it to the garden. Interesting morphological features are the vestigial wings and the tiny pincers on the ends of its forelimbs similar to those on scorpions and 'crawdads'. To get the close-up view without blocking the light from the flash, I used a 135mm telephoto lens with close-up rings. That combination allowed me to place the camera about three feet from the bowl and still fill the frame with the bowl. This image is about 150 to 200% life size.
The photo of the tree reflection was taken in the early 60s. I used to fish in this pond. The house I grew up in is visible in the distance. The barn, where I did my chores, is barely visible behind the upraised branch of the tree. I had forgotten that the barn was falling down by the early 60s. It played a prominent place in my life as a teen.
These cows are grazing (some are just looking) at the foot of Round Mountain west of the road. My Grandfather Skipper grew up on the east side of Round Mountain about a half mile away and my Grandfather Maxwell lived most of his life about a mile west. The high school that I attended was about two miles west, but I grew up in a little town 8 miles north of Round Mountain. The road was finally paved a few years ago and I now drive through the area quite often on trips back home. (This area was only recently cleared of most of the timber.)
This is Halbrook land. It is located in the creek bottoms at the junction of West Point Remove and Brock Creeks a mile north of Cleveland in the southeast corner of the Ozark National Forest. The soil is very rich from the many floods of the past, but flood control dams on both creeks now prevent flooding. The land has been used for a variety of crops over the past 70 years. I remember it most from haying in the 50s and gathering corn one year behind a horse-drawn wagon. This photo was taken from the back of a pickup truck just a couple of years ago. This type of wild flower was growing wild all over the country that year. My brother, who now owns the land, hired a company to poison the flowers so that grass could be grown for hay. In 1958 this area was under 10 to 20 feet of water and all the cattle were washed away. Only a few survived. I have a few poor quality photos of that flood; they might make a future topic for this site.
These wild flowers are the same as those in the field above, but these were growing in the field across the highway from the old home place in Cleveland. My young nephew, Tyler, crossed the road to take some flower pictures and I joined him.
Nandina Berries
During one of our many returns to Eureka Springs, Arkansas (where Ann and I spent our honeymoon), we spent the night in the Crescent Hotel. This plant was growing beside the swimming pool out behind the hotel. I was interested in getting patterns in B&W and this was the result. I processed and printed the film. I think that the print I scanned was actually just a small test print of a segment of the negative. If so, I'll soon scan the negative, replace this scan, and leave a note.
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PAGE 1 - High School girlfriend photos, butterflies, flowers, tiny spider, tree frog on rose.
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PAGE 2 - Crystal egg and Wooden Dove from Moscow, Tiny Harmonica, Crop Dusting Bi-plane, Pokeberries, 'White Water' and a Deformed Wild Daisy
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PAGE 3 - Bugs: A Rare Combination - Mosquito on mating 'Walking Sticks,' Cicada, Grasshopper, Red Spider, Butterfly, and Green Leaves.
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PAGE 4 - My fiancee in 1962 on the University of Arkansas campus. Fields of cows and wild flowers. A mole cricket. B&W photos of leaves, berries, and a dead tree in a pond.
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PAGE 5 - Flowers, spider, bees, aphids, tree frog, cicada - Nature photos from the spring of 2002 and an old photo of posts on the beach at Galveston.
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1/21/02
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