Family Treasures - How Important is a Professional Photographer...

[MyKey]

Digging around my grandmother's storage items I came across a treasure of a lot of family portraits. Dating back to the early 1900's I was humbled by the talents and art which these photographers processed to capture these portraits.

The portrait below is my Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother with their 4 of 5 children.

Royce Fulton
Gerald Fulton
Merle Fulton
Nat Fulton

Warren Fulton (my grandfather was not born yet) so by this I know the portrait was captured between 1915 and 1916 between Nat who looks to be around 1 and my grandfather birth date.

Royce went on to develop and own the world's largest pipeline and gas line company and his son Joe Kurt Fulton went on to create the "Red Raider" of Texas Tech and was introduced into the Horse Racing Hall of Fame this past year.

Merle and my grandfather (again not photographed due to not being born yet) went on to have Fulton Tire Company in Lubbock which supplied the Govt. with tire needs during WWII. I had always heard this but today I found a portrait of the orig. tire store before WWII. Kinda cool see the humble beginnings. Showing hard work and good planning will help create a business and unlock doors.

A wedding portrait of my Mother and Father almost 50 years old now with my father's mother and grandparents. Fun to see how even today the same pose and lighting works and well sells over and over again!


Now think about the pressure, the talent, the equipment, the concept to capture these images. Then take it a step further and think about how the photographer had to herd up the kids, hopefully get them to smile, at least look at the camera then BAM take the portrait. Or take their camera gear on location to capture the images needed during a wedding event.

PRETTY FREAKING AMAZING if you ask me, especially since the vast majority of photographers today would not even want to tackle this sort of thing today.


Finally the Evolution of Photography during the last century
The life of my Grandmother (passed away in 2007)

A true artist captured and painted the first one in 1936 when she was in High School just turning 16.

Mass produced Olan Mills did the second one in 1993 at the age of 73.


Anyways I wanted to share one of the amazing family treasures I found today cleaning up the house storage items.

(Please note I checked with Olan Mills on the Copyright on the portrait of my Grandmother, they gave me approval to post it).

[peeker]

This is a great example of why we have to convince young brides that printing is a good idea rather than dump images on a DVD. 40 years from now, where will the DVD be?

[ndsimm]

this would make a great blog post to try and educate families on the need and quality of professional photography - I can't see prints from Walmart lasting this long....

[popawalker]

This is great Mike. Thank you for sharing.