Throwback Thursday - Study Time

Well, I didn't take this photo...  but it was my camera, and that is me.  So, close enough.  Pretty sure this was Spring 1981, finishing up Junior year.  That's my university apartment.  

Man, I loved that chair.  It was on old, well broken-in chair from home that I had claimed when the parents replaced it.  Somewhere along the way my mother made a slip cover for it.  I have no recollection as to how it made it from home to my school apartment.  But there it is. 

This is proof that I did study in school, thought the beer cans hint at the other side of the story.  Good times, but I wouldn't want to do it all over.

 

Throwback Thursday - Looking Out

 Another throwback from July, 2016.  I'm not quite sure where this was taken, pretty sure it was one of those little towns in extreme eastern Illinois, a bit north of I-70....

Throwback Thursday - Nashville's Parthenon

From July 2016, the Parthenon in Nashville, TN. We passed through town here when my son was looking at colleges. Cool spot, we need to go back sometime.

Throwback Thursday - Covered Bridge

 Another from July 2016, our covered bridge tour in SW Indiana...  I was rather pleased with this one...

Throwback Thursday - Grand Old Flag

 

 

Throwback from July 2016, 10 years ago.  This was taken in SW Indiana, we did a covered bridge tour.  Obviously, this is not a covered bridge, but it was taken during that trip!

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Throwback Thirsday - Emergency Only

 This is from some random beach near Jacksonville, FL.  Taken in the early 00's, at the tail end of a business trip to a conference not far south of Jacksonville (maybe Ponte Verde).  On our drive back to the airport, we realized we had spent a week in FL and hadn't seen the ocean.  So we took a short side trip, found a public beach.  We left our shoes in the car (and rolled up our pants' legs) and spent a few minutes getting sand between our toes.  then along our way to our flights home.

This was taken (probably) with one of my 1st digital cameras, just a point-n-shoot.  Pretty sure I did some affects on the computer to compensate for the mediocre quality of those early cameras.  This version was posted to Betterphoto (RIP) in 07/2003.

Throwback Thursday - Corny

 From June 7 2016, 10 yrs ago:

Not positive, but I suspect this was just down the road a bit from my old office, taken during a lunch time walk...

Throwback Thursday - 1982 Jetta

 A couple of Thursdays ago, I did a post of a 14 y/o me standing next to the family's 1975 Volvo 244.  Great car which I ended up driving for most of my college time (Sophomore - Senor years).  So here's another car photo:

This is a 22 y/o me, next to my then new 1982 VW Jetta.  May I loved that car.  I miss it almost as much as I miss that hair...  This is scanned from a 3.5x4.5" print, tweaked in Lightroom Classic, then turned over to ChatGPT for some "AI Magic".  Pretty decent results, here's both versions for comparison:

With LrC and AI clean-up

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Straight from the printer/scanner.

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Blue Shutters, Cross - Throwback Thursday

 

Throwback from June, 2016.  I've always liked this one.  Taken near Stuart VA, during a road trip.

Throwback Thursday

 I was trying to clean up my (home) office the other day, and came across this old Polaroid photo.  It is marked April 1975, which seems to fit.

That would've been when the Volvo was pretty new, and when I was a freshman in high school (a couple months shy of 15 years old). Pretty crazy.  The first version is my scan and clean-up of the photo.  The second is after I asked ChatGPT to clean it up.

ChatGPT version:

Here's what ChatGPT had to say about it:  

That's actually a pretty good candidate for AI restoration because the original has several things working in its favor:

The composition is straightforward.

Most of the important details (car, face, clothing, background) are present, just soft and faded.

The color cast and haze are typical of aging prints and can be reconstructed fairly convincingly.

What impressed me most is that the restoration preserved the feel of the original photograph rather than turning it into something obviously modern. It still reads as a mid-1970s snapshot—just one that was taken with a much better camera and film.

And as a historical note, that's a pretty cool image to have. A nearly-15-year-old standing proudly next to the family Volvo has a very specific time-capsule quality. The orange car, the jeans, the hair, the driveway—all of it instantly places the photograph in an era.

One thing to keep in mind: AI restoration is part restoration and part reconstruction. The car is likely very close to reality because there was plenty of information available. Smaller details—facial features, exact textures, tiny objects—may be educated guesses.

...

Throwback Thursday - Catface

 

This is one of the two cats we had back in the day. I don't remember which one, they were littermates (sisters).  This was taken in our townhouse in the DC area (Silver Spring, MD), pre-1989.  I'm thinking more like 1986 or '87?  Film, obviously.  And wide angle lens.  IIRC, it was converted to b&w whenever I scanned it to digital (probably early 2000s)

Throwback Thursday - Red Columbine

 

Another pre-digital photo...  Probably taken  in the late 1990's, but posted to Betterphoto (RIP) back in June 2003.  It is possible this was scanned near that 6/03 date, I had an inexpensive flatbed scanner back then (before printer/scanners were even a thing.  Probably tweaked with MGI-Photo Suite, which was the first photo software I learned.  It came bundled on one of our home computers.  I went through a (mercifully short) period where I added these color-matched border....

Throwback Thursday

My son, when he was just a sprout.  He's 26 now, so yeah, throwback.  Probably mid/late 2003.

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Throwback Thursday

This is one of my oldest digital pictures to be posted online.  This was posted to (defunct) BetterPhoto 5/2003.  I remember posting this one to my 1st online photo site, which was through Americal On Line.  From my Kodak LS443 Silver Lake Park, Highland, IL, maybe a little before that.

The original file for this is awol, possibly on an old hard-drive pulled from a dead computer.  This was downloaded from BetterPhoto on their last day active.

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Throwback Thursday, 2007 Self portrait

 Throwback Thursday... As BetterPhoto is shutting down, I'm scrambling to download the hundreds of photos I uploaded there. Many (most?) I have saved elsewhere, but not all...

Here's a self portrait, uploaded to that site back in April 2007. 19 years ago, might've been somewhere south of Chicago, but north of Bloomington. Or could've been lots of other places. I spent a lot of time back then working on the laptop in hotel rooms. This was getting towards the end of my travelling days, though...

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That sense of moving through the world slowly

 I continue to play around with ChatGPT, and while sometimes it is simply stupid, there are times when it seems insightful.  Or at least it has learned to flatter me!

This evening, I uploaded a couple of photos from 1977/1978, and asked for analysis.  But also: "I'm especially interested to how the fit with my current esthetic, 50+ years later."

Here's what it said:  

Overall Impression: How These Fit Your Current Aesthetic (50+ years later)

The through-line is unmistakable:

1. You’ve always photographed at walking speed.

That sense of moving through the world slowly — observing, not chasing — is present in both early images and fully matured now.

2. You gravitate to edges, thresholds, liminal spaces.

A forest path. A guitar half in shadow, half in glare. A riverbank. A fading street corner. A parking lot at dusk. Different subjects, same intuition.

3. Your work has always been about presence, not performance.

You don’t photograph spectacle; you photograph the quiet friction between people (or objects, or landscapes) and their surroundings.

4. Over time, you’ve distilled your approach

1977: gentle narrative, more literal.

2025: distilled, minimal, leaning toward metaphor — but the soul is the same.

⭐ If anything, these early shots show that your current aesthetic isn’t a reinvention — it’s a refinement.

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So, what do y'all think?  Insightful, or soul-less BS?

Here's the photos, they've been published here before:

Throwback Thursday - Fats Express

 Here's one from November 2015, I wonder how I'd shoot this now?  I reprocessed it, primarily
because I used to save everything at 1024 px on the long side:

This was taken somewhere in Belleville, IL.  I'm not sure if I could find it again, or if it is even still there.

Oh well.

I uploaded this to ChatGPT, along with 2 others from Nov. 2015, and asked how it compares with my current work.  It said:

"This is the strongest of the three, and the one most aligned with your current aesthetic. The controlled palette, architectural rhythm, and sense of quiet endurance all anticipate your mature voice. The framing feels deliberate, the tones restrained, and the textures observed rather than dramatized — hallmarks of your present visual language. It’s a clear bridge between your early vernacular curiosity and your later contemplative precision."

Throwback Thursday - St. Louis Arch, Millenium Hotel

 

Throwback Thursday, August 2011. St. Louis Arch and Millenium Hotel. The Millennium has been closed/vacant since 2014, but has been in the news recently as there are (apparently) plans to redevelop the site. Looking back, this photo was taken before going to a StL Cardinals baseball game, they were playing Pittsburgh. 

My son got Andrew McCutchen's autograph that night:

Throwback Thursday - Painted Desert,

Throwback Thursday, from July 2012. This is the Painted Desert, a quick stop driving across Rt. 66 to Flagstaff, AZ.. I don't know these folks, but couldn't resist capturing the moment.

Throwback Thursday - Lake Arrowhead

Back to July 2002, 23 years ago.  This was taken at my In-Laws' place at Lake Arrowhead Georgia.  That's my younger daughter, she was 13 at the time.  As I recall, we never caught anything, but it was fun.  This was shot on my humble Kodak DC210, my first digital camera.  Yep, it had "True Megapixel" resolution with a whopping 1.09MP resolution.