Some Photos of my Family History...

So this past summer while up at the families summer cottage in the beautiful Adirondack mountains I was digging under the eaves looking for treasures and came upon a box full of my poppy's photographs and even older images of my Grandmother's side of the family from the late 1800's. It was pretty sweet and I set out to spend the rest of the summer scanning all these images and setting them into an acid free scrap book style book to best preserve them. Here are some images of my ancestors... The Crockers and the Watermans and below those some of my Poppy's work. He worked at the Binghamton Press for 30 years the majority of which he was their Chief of Photography.

The rest are scanned images of some of my Poppy's orginal's. I just loved finding these as I inherited all of his cameras when he passed away in 2001. I had never really known he was a photographer until after his death and those camera's awoke a deeper creativity in me that took onto photo classes in high school and pursuing and completing a degree in Studio Art in college. 

I love the one below, it so captures the essence of the 1970's to me!

Binghampton, NY gets a lot of winter.. I love all of his weather shots.. I have about 20 different prints and tons of negatives. 

Just wanted to share these. It always amazed me when I look at these discoveries as well as those about my Dad's Dad- The Grandfather and see how deeply my love of art, creating and appreciation is rooted in my family. I grew up at my Grandfather's knee watching him paint, inherited all my Poppy's camera's when I was 12 and when my Grandfather moved to a nursing home while I was in high school, my Aunts and Uncles graciously gave me all of his painting supplies (and it was A LOT). I just completed my Bachelors in Studio Art from the University of Mary Washington and honestly.. aside from a few odd supplies.. these gifts from my grandfathers saw me through 4 years. I can look back at my photographs and know that I captured that image through the same lens and view finder as my Poppy and when I look at my paintings.. I know they are painted by the same brushes, palette knives and paints that my grandfather once used. 

I dunno.. to me, that's just really special!