The Family Trip

Imagine coming across something like this randomly on the web. My friend Nick's little sister spotted the feature on Slate—the kids are the two of them, aged almost-seven and almost-three respectively. The pictures are by their father Erich, of course, whose work I've featured here before (note the Erwittesque self-portrait at the end. E.E. happened to be a friend of that family, too).

Nick says, "The Trip Across the Country (to visit my father's mother in Carmel, California) has mythic status for both of us. I still read the comics whenever I can...."

I'm a sucker for mid-century 35mm B&W, like some people are suckers for vampire movies or books about spies, so of course I loved this set (but why doesn't Slate have a fullscreen feature?). The fact that it's of friends adds one more dimension.

Mike
(Thanks to Nick)

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Hans]

Great fun. Though I'm pretty sure that herd of "elk" is really a herd of cows :-)

[Del]

What a trip down memory lane that provides. Only in my case traveling with four other siblings, an aunt and uncle, mom and dad in his new 1959 Lido Lavender Buick station wagon. I'll never forget when everyone got sick in unison, overnight at a hotel on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Strangely the aunt and uncle never traveled with us again. Go figure. Really terrific photos by the way.

[Paul]

I wonder if anyone this summer taking a trip across the country shooting photos with a digital camera will have anything to show in forty years time. Every time I download my raw files to one of my hard disks I get this uneasy feeling it just isn't as safe as all my folders loaded with all my negatives since I was sixteen years old.

[Roger Bradbury]

I like No. 14, a nicely composed landscape that happens to be made just right because the family happen to be there.

[Walter Glover]

Damn! It was all so innocent and simple back then.

I suspect the work of a Pentax S series — a totally innocent and simple beast that produced sterling results.

W

[Dave Jenkins]

I've always liked Hartmann's work. He was a very underrated photographer.

[Robin P]

Damn it Mike, that's not fair! If you keep posting links like that I'll never get over having sold all my film cameras.
Great proof that family holiday slideshows can be enjoyable - when thoughtfully edited.

[John Camp]

Very nice.

But...elk?

[Rob Atkins]

"...suckers for vampire movies..'

TOP: The Online Punster.

[Radiopaque]

Just coming back from a small road trip myself, I find this work enjoyable and timeless. I only wish we could enjoy it fullscreen.

[Marty McAulff]

Thank you so much, Mike and Nick. Another beautiful post. Right off the bat, 2nd photo, of Northville, NY, where I spend many of my own summer days. If I'm not mistaken, the Newberry Co. 5-10-25 Cent Thrift Store signage might actually still be there.
This is why I'll follow the lynx down the lynx-hole when I soon talk myself into that EOS-M.

[Jeffrey MacMillan]

50's B&W is awesome. Throw in cars, Main St, diners and a good eye : it's always worth the time. Really nice photos. This guy might develop into a decent photog.... (:-).

[Mathew Hargreaves]

I liked two images in particular. The hotel room with the kids and that B&W box TV on the metal stand. The old style TV caught my eye. The second is the gorgeous night time shot of the decrepit building. No ghost hunters with infrared cameras at that time.

[Jarrett]

Found this one while clicking around...

http://todayspictures.slate.com/20120615/images/PAR51089.jpg

:D

[Walt Edmundson]

Yup, loved the self portraits at the beginning and end. I often shot in traffic and align the camera, not for a self portrait, but for a view of the traffic behind me. LOL
I may have to place a journey like that on a bucket list. I took a journey from Eastern North Carolina to San Diego in 1966 when I was 11. But I went via SeaShore/Trailways buses. Neither company survives today. Traveled on a free pass with my grandfather and grandmother. He was a diesel mechanic for SeaShore.

[Allan Ostling]

I was bowled over by photo #16, showing the interior of a bar in Cisco, Utah. This town featured in the movie Thelma and Louise – the scene where Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon talked to an old man sitting on a rocker on a porch.

Cisco is little more than ruins today. I visit it every time I am in the vicinity of Moab.

[Dale]

Mike,

Good post, and I enjoyed Hartmann's photos. Like you, I have a soft spot for mid-century BW photos, although it's hard for me to say just why. I'd have to think about that a while...

Dale

[Armand]

Hi Mike, Thanks for sharing. I still shoot B&W films with my 50s cameras :)

[jean-louis salvignol]

The flight of time. A human vision of eternity. Admirable and heartbreaking.

[Avram Levi]

todayspictures.slate.com is a place I visit every single weekday. A good set of photos everyday with usually one or two gems waiting to be discovered - such as the photo posted above (my favorite from that set as well).

[Chris Y]

Retina, Retina, where you been so long....?

[Mike Shimwell]

'I have a thing about mid-century black and white'

Funny, as I was leafing through a pile of papers last night thinking aobut an OM-D, I ran across a small print of my younger daughter shot last year with TMax 100 and my Zeiss Ikon and 50 indoors. It stopped me in my tracks and reminded me that adding another camera would not necessarily improve my photography:)

This summer's trip will be documented, loosely and irregularly, with 35mm mono film. My wife will of course have a little digi as will the girls...

Mike

[Don Jagoe]

What a complete and utter joy that trip through time and place was. Thanks so much for leading me to it. Having made a cross-country trip that same year, in a white Rambler wagon, with my two little brothers, I could relate to it on so many levels. The photographs are achingly good. I stopped at photo number two, wondering if now, when the idle policeman saw a man shooting photos of children in the street (furtively no doubt), he would not spring to his constitutional duty and intercede. As a previous poster said--and at the risk of sounding my age--it was a simpler and in many ways, better time.

[John]

I wasn't on the scene until 1958 but these images look as if they could have come from our family photo album. Looking back, it seems like the world changed more slowly in the '50s and '60s than it does today. In any case, I was surprised by my emotional connection with this pictures which, for me, is what photography is all about.

[Neil]

What a nostalgia! As a vacation, I wish I could take a trip in that time!

Your purpose of the blog and my purpose of visit is posts like this Mike! This inspires me to do something similar with my 4 and 9 year olds!

Btw, I lived about 9 years in Waukesha on springdale drive and now I wish I had known you back then!

[Andy Kowalczyk]

# 8 really sent me back to some long unactivated brain cells. I used to ride these kiddie hand cars at the local "kiddie land"

http://www.trainontime.com/rides/index.php

[Anthony Sawers]

What a treat. I've always liked Eric Harmann's work so with this I feel especially privileged. A personal photo essay, young family and all.

[Dragan Novakovic]

Beautiful photographs from my favourite period in B&W photography. That's the mood and look I hope to achieve some day. Thanks Mike!

Just wondering: in picture No 21 the camera reflected in the mirror looks to me like a Pentax Spotmatic (notice the curved horizonal line immediately below the pentaprism top); yet it can't be since the camera only came out in 1964. The Nikon F was introduced in 1959, but the horizontal line on the Nikon pentaprism is straight and I don't think the curvature in the picture is due to the mirror because the other lines are straight. A bit of a mystery to me. Any comments?