My grandfather's "selfie" (circa 1898)
Last edited Sun Aug 30, 2015, 11:05 PM - Edit history (1)
When I was about 8 years old, I'd often ask my granddad, "Tell me about the olden days." He would always answer, "Well, let's bring out the photo albums."
When I saw this photo, I remember saying, "Granddad! That's YOU in the mirror!" He laughed and said, "Well, I wanted to do some experiments."
Thank you, everybody, for talking about scanning old photos. My brother was able to do this for me.
Does anybody know what kind of camera this is?
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Cool bit of family history. 
Your granddad must have been pretty awesome 
The old ones are just like a time machine... I wonder what will happen to all the digital ones from today's world? 
Wise, friendly, good natured--I imagine he would have loved talking to you.
taken by the same photographer.
Lots of scenes in "old" Brooklyn and NYC. Horses, big wheel bicycles, and Model T's mixed together. Family visiting Atlantic City dressed in extremely funny looking bathing suits. 
I knew there would be some camera experts to help me out. As I mentioned, I hope to be posting a few more choice oldies in the near future.
I loved looking at these books with him, like some children want the same favorite storybook to be read over and over.
An interesting conversation I had with him about the transportation system in the city: I was looking at the pictures of horses and horse drawn trolleys mixed in with the very early automobiles and bicycles and I said, "I wish we still had horses instead of cars!" (Like many young girls, I loved LOVED horses ). His answer to me was, "You don't want that. As a boy I would sit in the trolley and cringe at the way they would whip those poor horses. It was cruel. It helped the horses when the automobile was invented." I never forgot that. 
(my dad) became a teenager. Dad was born in 1914.
I never asked him what happened to his old camera. He had a huge walk-in attic with lots of little rooms with trunks of neat stuff, but I was most interested in looking at my grandmother's old-fashioned clothing. Never occurred to me to ask him about the camera.
By the time his 5 grandchildren came along, he seemed to just sit back and enjoy all the photos my parents would take of us. Really was into his grandchildren--Because of him, I developed a great interest in gardening and learning about barometers- weather, insects, and most of all birds. My grandparents no longer lived in the city, by that time.
