Finding Buried Treasure - Mom in Miami circa 1960

Olga Diaz walking along Downtown Miami

It's been nearly a year and a half since my mom passed away and as continue to go through the things that she collected during her lifetime in exile (1958-2008),  I'm still finding buried treasure; namely photos of my mom and dad from their younger days.  First of all, there are very few images of my mom prior to her arrival in the United States.  They were not allowed to bring photos out of Cuba, so there, they remained and probably lost to the ages.  As to the photos of my mom during her 20's as a single woman in Miami and as a newlywed in 1961,  there are also very few pictures that exist.  My dad used a medium format camera back then.  Strangely, some of the pictures, the B&W's are in decent shape.  The color images? Well, a lot of them faded, but some are as vivid as the day they were taken. Must have been the film stock my dad was using back then.  All the negatives were lost long ago, so these prints are all I have.  Even most of the photos of my youth, my early birthday parties, have faded to the point that even restoration cannot bring them back. 

For the last 6 months, I have been putting all these old pictures together, including my first photos on 35mm from the 1970's and beyond, and I have been sending them to Scancafe for scanning and restoration.  I hope to organize the images and have them printed in photo books so my kids will be able to see where they came from and how their grandparents and parents lived in the old days of the 20th century.  It's wild finding these pictures of my mom and my aunt when they were in their early 20's; they looked fantastic.  I just wish there were more photos taken by them, especially of the places they lived and the city as well.  People change and so do their homes and cities.  Miami has changed so much since I was a kid, I only wish I had seriously photographed the city a lot more in the 1970's and 1980's, especially the landmarks that no longer exist. 

The picture posted here is one that has captivated me.   First of all, a large chunk on the lefthand corner had been ripped and gone.  The folks at Scancafe did a great job in restoring this picture for me. I love this picture not only cause it's my mom, but it is simply an amazing image.  First, it shows off old Miami, the old cars, Biscayne Blvd. when it had all the coconut palms. Second it shows my mom, in her early 20's, beautiful, vibrant, ready to take on the world, and of course her amazing smile that has enthralled so many people throughout the years. 

When I finally get to printing that photo book of my mom's life in pictures, I think this one will grace the cover.

So some advice to you all,  get all the photos of you and your family, of your parents and grandparents, and great grand parents, anything you have, and get them scanned and restored. If the pics are in old albums, take them out if you can before the chemicals in the plastics destroy your photos. If you have negatives,  scan them and sleeve the negatives and keep them in special photo boxes to preserve them.

You can then organize the scans using programs such as lightroom and you can then create photo books.  The pictures will be there in a book for everyone to enjoy; the quality will be superior, and you'll have the scans backed up in multiple formats in your archives just in case something happens to the photo book. 

Now back to your regular programming.  

Seeing Your Folks In A Different Light

© 2010 by Michael A. Pancier

Since my mother died a little over a year ago,  I've been going through all her belongings including all of the photos that she had.   Many of the images were in albums and faded.  I learned of a company called Scancafe which will scan and restore anything you send them, whether it be negatives, prints, slides, or cardboard.  You simply put the pics or negatives in a zip lock and label them,  put everything n a box and send it to them.  They put them online and you only pay for the scans you want (provided it is at least 50% of the total images scanned).  You can learn more about the service on their website.  In any event, I finally got the proofs today available online, and damn the quality is amazing. Photos of my parents honeymoon from 1961 as vibrant as ever.  But what is even more wild is seeing your parents are young people.  In this image below,  my mom was in her mid 20's and my dad in his mid 30's.  They were young, healthy, thin, in love and enjoying themselves.  Seeing them in these photos makes you realize that in addition to being your mom and dad,  they were also regular people who probably thought and did the same or similar things that you did when you were in your 20's and 30's and without children.  It makes you realize that before your mom was "mom",  she was a young attractive woman and your dad before he was "dad" was a handsome young cool looking dude and not the parents we watched age throughout the years leading up to their eventual deaths. But here in this photograph,  their youth is captured and frozen for all time so I and my kids can enjoy. Once again, it is so important to take pictures of your parents, your family, your kids.  Save the images, scan them, for one day the pictures and the memories will be all you will have.  The above image was taken in Buenos Aires Argentina in March of 1960.

In any event, this service has restored some images that were 2x2 and stuck in the garage for over 10 years into very cool images.  Some of my negatives that I kept from the 1980's have been scanned and are sharp and vibrant as well. My goal is to try and scan everything worthwhile in my possession from the pre-digital days, especially my family pics that are fading fast so I can import them into Lightroom, catalog and tag them,  and create coffee table photo books which are archival and which will last for generations, so perhaps my kids can see what their grandparents and parents  looked like when they were young, wild, and free and in the end, seeing their parents as simply human.