Sepia Saturday - Fuzzy Photos

Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share their family history through photographs. 

This week's prompt invites us to forget photographic pride and display our failed efforts.

 I make sure that my failed photos  do not see the light of day for long and quickly bin them,    so I cannot reveal here my headless and footless shots, or faces blinded by light. 

Funnily enough,  the prompt came though the week I had attempted to take a shot which almost matches and I had not yet deleted it from my camera card.  

This was taken at the most iconic point in the Scottish Borders - Scott's View (named after writer Sir Walter Scott).   You look across to the triple Eildon Hills (no - you cannot see them in my picture), with the River Tweed winding below.  You do catch a glimpse of the river in the bottom right.

Unfortunately to get the river in view, as well as the hills in the distance,  I needed to be 7 foot tall or perched on a high  ladder  plus run the risk of overbalancing and tipping headlong down the steep drop. I also forgot to adjust my camera which I had set for  a close up to get a better view of the hills.  The result - nothing much but trees!

Turning to my parents' album  there was no problem in coming up with faded shots taken in the sun light, but which still captured a sense of family and were felt to be worth sticking firmly  in the album.

Here are two photos showing both my grandmothers - so valuable in that respect as I don't have many pictures of them. They were taken in 1938 - the year Mum and Dad  married.  The top one is of my mother and at a  good guess  her mother who died when I was a baby.  The fact my father had identified it as Garstang (Lancsashire) , was a big help here, as my mother's Danson family came from nearby Poulton-le-Fylde.   The strong line of my father's writing - he always used a fountain pen and had a distinctive signature  -  alone evokes memories of him.

The second photo  shows Mum perched on the  fence, with  Dad's mother to the right and Mum's sister in law on the left  - my Auntie Fran. 

 

It is striking that out on a country walk, both grandmothers were dressed formally,  wearing hats.

Fashion of a different kind - here I am dressed up for a walk in Stanley Park, Blackpool.  A proper little lady in a coat and beret,  which  no doubt my dressmaker mother made,  with posh shoes and a little bag.  Was this my Sunday best outfit? 

Stanley Park was a favourite outing, with woodland walks, boating on the lake, swans and ducks to feed, children's playground, bandstand, floral gardens and a café (in the Art-Deco style)  for an ice-cream. On an extensive 390 acre site, it was opened in 1926  and named after the first  Member of Parliament for Blackpool.  

Why on earth did my father choose to take this photo of my brother amidst a field of litter?    My father worked as a sales representative  for the Beecham Group with Lucozade one of their products, and I suspect that is a small bottle of Lucozade that Chris  is holding, as we did enjoy free samples. 


So all in all, no-one would call these good photos, but I am pleased they were not thrown out. 

Click HERE to discover more fuzzy photos from fellow Sepia Saturday fans.