A few quick words of explanation for those who never shot with film in decades past.
Print film produced a negative image, which could easily be home-developed if it was Black-and-White film; otherwise by any competent lab. You could make as many prints as you liked from the negative. At a consumer level, using print film was ridiculously easy: practically any camera or film would do, and nobody expected great results. This is why it was possible for professionals, with their extra skill, much better film, and very much better equipment, to make a living.
Slide film - or colour transparency film - produced a positive image, a colour transparency, intended for projection onto a big screen. It could not be developed at home. A slide film had to be sent away to the national lab of the film brand used - usually Kodak in Hemel Hempstead in my case. Taking pictures with slide film was tricky. You had to get the exposure exactly right. This meant using a quality camera, and quality film.
So using slide film was more exacting, and tended to bump up costs. But a really good slide was a wonderful thing. It could be projected to stunning effect. Brilliant colours, very crisp detail, and giant-sized. Much bigger than the largest domestic TV screen in 2020.
Unfortunately the average amateur photographer, certainly the ordinary 'holiday' photographer, commonly did not have the skill or equipment to get the best out of slides. Proud of them he (it was generally 'he') may have been, the act of projection revealed all the faults of wrong exposure and poor composition, none of which could be corrected. Inevitably the home 'slide show' acquired a bad reputation. Many ordinary photographers, keen but talentless, regularly subjected visiting friends and family to an excruciating ordeal. I was as guilty as any. This advertisement for GePe ultra-thin slides (thin, so that they wouldn't get stuck in the projector, which often happened) appeared in a September 1974 issue of the weekly Amateur Photographer magazine, and brings back some memories! It was the typical experience when visiting a couple who had just been on holiday.
So true.
All of my photos were transparencies from the beginning in 1965 up to the end of 1989, when I switched to print film.
I was only 13 in 1965, and to begin with I could afford only one or two films a year out of my pocket money (I spent most of my money on magazines, paperback books and maps, and sometimes sweets and ice cream). Later on I took photos in quantity, particularly from 1973, after buying a much better camera. I numbered my slides, and I can tell from this that by the end of 1989 I had taken about 5,000.
That may sound a lot, but I took vastly more when I switched to print film. For a very long time, slides were the only way to secure really good colour pictures, but they were fiddly to handle, difficult to store, and a hassle to project. Finding a particular slide was a pain, unless there was a comprehensive paper list or card index with full details of each slide meticulously noted down. I had such a list, but still couldn't pull out all my slides on one subject, as you can do instantly with digital photos. And each slide was a one-off - there was no cheap way of copying them. All this limited their usefulness and appeal.
I kept my transparencies in wooden slide boxes bought from Boots. They were nice boxes, and I eventually had eight of them before they stopped being available in the late 1970s. Each box could hold 350 slides, if putting two in each slot. So the overall capacity of my eight boxes was no more than 2,800 slides, and eventually I adopted a policy of weeding to keep the collection below this figure.
Once the habit of weeding transparencies began, I applied it vigorously. Obviously the main intention was to discard poor photos, and to keep only the best pictures; but I carried the weeding too far. By 1989 I had only 2,500 slides left out of the 5,000 actually taken, and in hindsight I do very much regret the total loss of so many photos, particularly from the 1960s and 1970s. How I wish that computers had been available in those years! So many substandard shots could have been rescued by tilting, cropping and exposure-correction. And then I could have scanned them all.
After 1989 there was no more weeding of slides. There was no need. The collection was never going to expand further because I'd switched to shooting colour print film.
Colour print film had greatly improved over the years, and next-day High Street developing was readily available at places such as Boots. It was also easy to have extra prints made. Besides, my Rollei slide-projector was ageing and giving trouble, and I was reluctant to spend money on a replacement. So I went over to print film in time for Christmas 1989. The changeover was permanent: I did not return to transparencies.
I was particularly impressed by the first of the high-resolution print films, starting with Kodak's ‘Ektar’ films. Do you remember these ads? This was from Photography magazine for November 1989:
At the time, this was revolutionary for a colour negative film. No wonder I switched.
I preserved the 2,500 slides I still had. I put them away carefully. The eight wooden boxes were good protection. My slides survived four more house moves. From 2000 I owned a scanner, and in principle I intended to scan every slide left in my collection. Once scanned, and digitised, and merged with my main photo archive, the original transparencies would then be thrown away. After 2005 I had no screen, and no slide projector, but the shots taken on slide film were far more easily (and usefully) viewed on a computer screen.
The years passed, and I did only a very little slide-scanning, just now and then. In all, only a few hundred were digitised, leaving the bulk of the task untouched. Every winter I promised myself that I would tackle this once and for all. Every winter, I put it off.
But then a week ago I went up into the attic, got those eight slide boxes down, and began the job. The coronavirus lockdown had paused my social life and holiday plans, and this was the ideal moment to get started on a Final Scanning Effort and then, afterwards, turn to my unscanned photo prints. (Another mammoth task)
So the table in my study was now laden with wooden boxes:
It was good enough.
I worked my way through three of the eight boxes before having had enough for one day. The pile of discarded slides quickly grew, and I soon half-filled the waste-paper bin.
At this stage, all I was doing was examining each slide to see whether I'd keep it for scanning, or otherwise throw it away at once. I was pleased to see that quite a lot in these first three boxes had already been scanned. If so, that made the keep-discard decision straightforward. But inevitably a lot hadn't been scanned, and never would be. So those had to go into the bin without compunction.
You mustn't think that I found this easy. Some of those slides dated back to 1965, back indeed to the very first slide film I shot. I just couldn't bring myself to discard one or two of my oldest slides - a beautiful sunset at Treyarnon Bay, and a shot of Trevose Head lighthouse, both taken in Cornwall in August 1965:
Those two slides (and maybe others) would have to be preserved as 'original historical documents'! But many others bit the dust. It had to be. And once I'd finished for the day, I made sure that the waste-paper bin was emptied into the kitchen bin, and that emptied as well. I didn't want to be tempted into having second thoughts. Only by quick decision, and ruthless adherence to it, would I get the job done.
I haven't got back to this task in the days since, but I will. And then keep at it. The remaining five wooden slide boxes contain people shots - portraits and groups. I expect deciding which of those to throw away will be much more of a challenge. I managed to jettison two out of three of the 'places' shots. I doubt that I can be so forthright with the 'people' shots.
It's a funny thing, but at this stage of my life I value the acquaintance of anyone who has ever come my way. Even those whose memory I would have once shuddered at. I have survived, and I'm still having fun. They however are probably not in the best of health, and may even be dead. So I want to preserve any picture I have of them.
At the end of this, once the slides have been whittled down to a manageable number, and scanned, and the digital files processed and captioned and filed away safely, and 99% of the slides binned, I shall be left with eight identical handsome wooden slide boxes. I shall offer them to whoever expresses an interest. (Would that be you, Coline?)
