Whats the story behing your photo ?

[BADGER.BRAD]

Hello All,

I am moving house in the near future and while packing away some stuff I came across some old photos. Looking at most of them I realized that for me there was a story behind them and a memory I'd almost forgotten but as a image to someone else they would not understand what made me take the photo. My father told me as a young lad that photos sometime in the future take you straight back to what you were doing at the time and why you took the photograph in the first place. Because of this I have tried my best to document my and my family's lives so that they can see them later. Lets here some of the stories behind your photos.

Here is one of mine to start.

I moved back to Sedgley in the West midlands having been living in Cornwall for sometime we moved to a house that was at the end of a street and was a corner plot having a garden bigger than the others in the Street. We lived there for a few years and then the landlords were made an offer on the extra part of the garden of £50k and sold it to a small developer who ended up doing this in our garden !
The kids thought it was great but it made a mess of our wildlife pond ( you can see some of the black polythene in the foreground ) and made our garden much smaller. We left shortly after and ended up buying the house I now live in. The image was taken on a dodgy Chinon SLR in about 2001. Not an exiting memory but one that was brought back to me as soon as I saw the photo which has been hidden for sometime. As a side note the wooden garage you can see in pieces originally contained a 20 year old Mini which had my three initials as a reg plate. Just before the builders were to arrive the landlord told me that his son was going to bring a battery and move the car, I thought you really think it will start after 20 years ! I stood and watched only to see it spark into life after two turns of the key, he then drove it around the muddy lane ( back entrance to the property ) and onto the road where he drove it onto a trailer. I was well impressed.

 

[Mr Badger]

This was taken outside the local pub one evening in the late 70s. My Dad and I had been clay pigeon shooting and had stopped at the local so he could have a quick pint on the way home. I was a bit bored while he chatted with his mates, so I stepped outside the pub with my camera and saw this elderly chap sitting at the table with a pint and obviously very much alone with his thoughts, so decided to capture the scene. He was totally oblivious to me, and that was my introduction to 'street photography' at the age of 14.

 

[gramps]

My photo is of a really great holiday we had in Sri Lanka, a really beautiful island with some great people and our first visit there.
We stayed at the Mount Lavinia Hotel in Columbo (the old Governor's palace), which was from another world and sited alongside a railway track. I loved seeing the people walking down the railway lines, as if it was a secret highway ... crazy to us but for them it was the thing to do and it never failed to make me feel that we were somewhere different and special.
We could watch them from a railway bridge quite close to the hotel and they would always be walking with umbrellas ... I will never forget the scenes.


trainline by Roger, on Flickr

On one occasion we decided to take a train from the busy Columbo Railway Station ... challenging because we had little idea of the language and asking for directions was confusing. However we eventually found a train to travel down the coast a bit and sat in a carriage containing many locals. Diagonally across from us was a mum with her young daughter, who was clearly bewildered by the two of us sitting on the train opposite her. As a father of four daughters, I would love to know what that little girl is doing today and what she has made of her life.



girlonatrain by Roger, on Flickr

Both were taken with a small elderly compact camera, I think a Panasonic but can't be sure.

 

[TheBigYin]

Chamonix Campsite by The Big Yin, on Flickr

Me, after diving back into frame from setting the self timer on my old Praktica. Looking remarkably cheerful and alert, considering i'd basically spent 2 days on the Magic Bus to Chamonix without sleep, disembarked, booked onto the Mer De Glace campsite a mile or so outside town, pitched the tent, gone food shopping, ate, then slept from 5pm until 9am before setting off with the mate I'd travelled down there with, straight off the bat to spend the next 3 days climbing Mont Blanc - no cheating, no cable cars or trains to get as close as possible, just off on foot. Stupid, really dumb move. Completely un-aclimatised - I did the final mile or so of the ascent 3 steps at a time interspersed with leaning on the ice-axe wheezing like someone tuning the bagpipes... 300 yards from the top, my mate, who'd been having similar breathing issues, but also certain "gastrointestinal trouble" decided he couldn't take a step further. I'd have dragged him to the top sitting on a bivi-bag, if it hadn't been for the steady stream of people passing bye - his ego couldn't cope with the ignominy...

8:45am on the top, burned 2 rolls of film, one in my camera, one in my mates so he at least had an idea of what the view from the other sides were like, and we were back off downhill...

4:15pm, still in full early 80's "scottish winter" kit (read Helly Hansen Salopettes and Jacket, Koflach Booots, Karrimor Alpiniste 7's) we were back in middle of town to sign off at the bureau des guides to say we were off the mountain...

6:00pm, back on campsite, showered, and apparently with a beer run done, my mate had retired to the tent to die quietly, while I celebrated with my neighbours. Photo Time... Behind me were a pair of really cool Dutch guys, can't remember their names, as it's over 35 years ago and we were only there for 5 days - but they were brilliant lads - and across from me were a South African couple, who had just done the walkers Haute Route in reverse - from Zermatt to Chamonix... more than that I cannot remember about them honestly.

7:30 having finished the third bottle of biere I slipped into something more comfortable - i think it was a mild coma. Woke half a hour later, ravenous, ate and crawled into my pit, and spent the night sleeping like a log for 90 minutes at a time, then waking screaming from leg cramps, 15 minutes later, repeat until sun-up.

Happy days.

We went on that summer (not just a holiday, we were there over 3 months!) to climb quite a few more mountains, my mate never did go back and have another crack at Mt Blanc though.

I also had my tent ransacked at one point of the trip, and some thieving scumbag nicked the 7 rolls of already exposed film I'd stashed in there while we were off in the hills - probably because aside from some canned food and a 6 pack there wasn't anything else of value in the tent... Guess the loss of those rolls of film is probably the reason that this shot is one of the few actual recorded memories of the trip that I have...