I opened up a box in the garage. I was looking for something, and I hoped that I would find it in there. The box had been packed for many years. It was loaded and closed up when I moved from Arizona to California in 2011. I guess whatever was in there wasn’t important, because it remained closed for many years. I commented about this box to my wife once, “Let’s just toss it, since we obviously don’t need whatever is in there.” I’m glad that I never followed through with that, because when I dug through the contents of the box I discovered some old slides that I had forgotten about.

It was fun to look at the old slides, most of which I had captured in 1999, but a few were from 1998, and some as recently as 2005. It was great to reminisce as I viewed the different pictures. Most of the exposures weren’t particularly good. Something that I have discovered over the years is that I was never as good of a photographer as I thought I was. Time has a way of humbling you, I think. While there are a few decent shots, some pictures that I really thought were worthwhile are actually cringe-worthy. Still, I separated the “best” slides from the rest and had them scanned. I never scan my old slides because it’s expensive to do so, but I thought it would be fun to do it in this case.

The Kodachromes appear to have a cool color cast, but in reality they don’t. That’s the difference between scanning them and viewing them through a projector or light table. I could have corrected that in software, but I chose not to. The Elite Chrome 200 shot is clearly fading, showing discoloration from age and inappropriate storage. Elite Chrome was a version of Ektachrome, and Ektachrome has been referred to as Fade-a-chrome for not having an especially long shelf life. It looks kind of neat, though, so I had it scanned. The actual slide seems a tad more red/purple than the digital version, but it’s close. In the early days, a lot of my photography had transportation themes, such as trains, trucks and airplanes, so you see that represented here (mostly trains). Even though these are old pictures, and despite the only Fujifilm connection being the singular Provia frame, I thought it might be worthwhile to share. I hope that you appreciate the ten slides below.

Night Train – Plano, TX – Canon AE-1 & Kodachrome 64 – 1999

Sunrise Tracks – Floyd, TX – Canon AE-1 & Elite Chrome 100 –  1999

DGNO Locomotive – Dallas, TX – Canon AE-1 & Elite Chrome 200 – 1999

Moving Tracks – Palestine, TX – Canon AE-1 & Ektachrome E100VS – 1999

Colorful Circles – Greenville, TX – Canon AE-1 & Ektachrome E100VS – 1999

Camaro & Caboose – Farmersville, TX – Canon AE-1 & Kodachrome 64 – 1999

Kansas City Southern – Plano, TX – Canon AE-1 & Kodachrome 64 – 1999

Lake Michigan From Sears Tower – Chicago, IL – Promaster 2500PK & Provia 100F – 2005

Flat Ball – Surprise, AZ – Promaster 2500PK & Elite Chrome 100 – 2004

Grand Canyon Summer – Grand Canyon NP, AZ – Canon AE-1 & Ektachrome E100SW – 2000