Doug; For safety and care of the old negatives, I'd give to an experieced photo lab.
Peter Naiman Glendale, WI
Doug Fattic <fatticbicycles@qtm.net> wrote: I got the bright idea last night to find the negatives (35mm prints) of pictures I took at various framebuilding shops in England in 1975 and 1978 on my Leica M2 with a 50mm pull out lens. This camera was old in 75 but took great pictures of course. My prints that weren't on Kodak paper had gotten brown and curled and generally ugly. Besides they were 3 X 5 and I was having a hard time finding plastic protectors to put them into a 3 ring binder album. To my surprise, one now new 4 X 6 picture that came from these negatives - that I don't ever remember seeing before - was of some British builder with a nice smile holding his brazing torch while pretending to work on a fork. The options are either Harry Quinn or one of his brothers at R.J. Quinn in Leeds. There is also a slight possibility it is Jim Harrison in Manchester.
When I was at Briggs, I made several trips over the Pennines to Manchester to talk to Ida Berry about the framebuilding equipment of her late husband. On one of those trips, I went on to Liverpool to visit the Quinns. I remember well my visit with Harry but I also remember not wanting to intrude too much with picture taking. So does anyone have a picture on line of Harry? The mystery guy I have a picture of looks a lot like one of the R.J. Quinn brothers only taller. I do have a good picture of one of Harry's brothers with a young apprentice. So it is possible it is the other brother at RJ if it isn't Harry.
When I was in Manchester I also took the opportunity to visit Jim Harrison. I discovered he had the same birthday as mine so there is a possibility my mystery photo is of him. However, I don't remember taking a picture of him.
And another question to the list members that have photo knowledge. I took these negatives up to the Walgreen's just up the street from me and used their 1 hour service. While the prints are a huge improvement over the old, they are also grainy. It provided quick satisfaction but isn't the final solution. Since these pictures have framebuilding historic value I'd like to sometime get better pictures developed from these old negatives and also put them on a CD so they can be shared electronically. Any suggestions of where I can get this done to a higher quality?
By the way, among my negatives I had reprinted, are pictures of my visit in 1978 to the Raleigh works before O'Donovan inconveniently came back and kicked me out and of inside the Ellis Briggs frame shop.
Thanks,
Doug Fattic
Niles, Michigan.