by Neil Larson » Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:19 am
After 40 years hindsight is virtually digitally "perfect"-
The real back story on these photos may be boring to some, but it reads like a Paul Harvey
episode of the Rest Of The Story...
I was given a set of contact prints, from a roll of film (this set of pictures) a month or 2 after this meeting took place. Back when cameras took photos on film a contact print was a test sheet of tiny photos the whole roll of film (negatives) could be placed one sheet of photo paper making "contact" with the raw paper. When the light exposed these one inch square images the photographer could then see his entire roll of film & decide which image to enlarge, rather than use up time & paper on the whole roll of film.
Having no other access to the negatives I had a set of tiny contact prints only, each stripe with about 5 photos per strip. Well back in the Spring of 1972 my was good... but not that good, tossing them into the trash can up in my bedroom, I was 19 & still living with the folks. My Mother, Lala Larson came in for the weekly cleaning, emptied the trash & salvaged all the photos I disposed. Curiously she got out her big Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass to get a better look, decided they were worth keeping *& put them into an envelop writing a short notation about save these for Neil.
-Roll clock forward 5 years -1977, Mrs. Lala Larson passed on due to Leukemia. Contact Prints are lost in archives of family shoe boxes until my Father moves into a new residence in Redlands Ca. in about 1993. He uncovers the envelop and sends them to me for a small Christmas Present in 2006, with the note, found these old hang glider photos Mom had them tucked away, I hope you can use them. So with diminished vision, no digital scanner I still could not see the small one inch photos & simply archived them for later use in my desk.
- Roll clock forward - 6 more years -present day- Here are the long lost one inch square micro contact print photos of the Southern California Hang Gliding Association General Membership Meeting from March of 1972, at the Southern California Gas Company regional Headquarters auditorium on Flower Street.
- You can say thank you to Mrs. Eulalia Larson, for her wisdom & insight to secure a small part of Hang Gliding History. By the way my Mother is the one who suggested I could get more involved by requesting a call for vote to establish an official SCHGA Historian onto the executive board of the organization. Of course I also made the move during that meeting to request by vote during that general membership meeting to install "me" as that Historian. Call it destiny or fate or karma, but I will call it a mother's intuition which allows you enjoy these photos . Thanks Mom!
From Day One
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