Snapshots in time: Scotland on Kodak film from 1967

This week’s big find on the Found Film site is a box of colour slides taken in 1967 which show many views of Scotland.

I found the box on eBay (as I find most of my slide purchases) when I was looking for exactly what this box is – a well looked after set of slides, in a good condition box which looks as if it has been treasured and with an index file which gives as much detail as possible for the pictures. I’ve come to the conclusion that the best images come in boxes of this style – ones which were taken by people who enjoyed their photography and considered their pictures worth keeping and looking after. Although it is possible to find good pictures in some of the cheap ‘selection sets’, the ratio of good images is significantly higher when boxes of this style are found.

The down side of course is that the price of this sort of purchase is sometimes higher. In this particular case I paid £15 for this box of 97 slides, so that is about 15p each; is that too much? Well, that’s a personal choice I guess; many people would think any of these photos are basically worthless and money thrown away – for me, I find good pictures which are well exposed, well composed and have been looked after a fascinating glimpse into the past and I think £15 is a price well worth paying.

Views of Scotland Slides

Anyway – the slides.

All the images are mounted in the same style slide mount – an F & P, glass mount, and are all taken on Kodak film although I don’t know the actual film name – the wording on the edge of the slides says ‘Kodak Safety Film’. The box is inscribed ‘Scotland 1967’ and seems to depict a holiday taken in Scotland in that year.

Considering the age of the photos they are in very good condition.  The colours and definition seems to have survived the years with hardly a mark and they are as bright and detailed to look at now as I suspect they were on the day they were returned from the development lab. The only slight issue with some of the slides is some dirt on the glass which needs to be cleaned off. At the moment I’ve just done an initial scan to get an impression of the slides and their contents, but I will clean and re-scan the better slides and include them in some future articles.

Unfortunately, there is nothing to indicate the camera used to take the pictures. At the time in 1967 it was possible to buy cameras with internal TTL metering, but the vast majority would have been without any form of light meter. Whatever mechanism the photographer used it was pretty effective – colour slide film has little exposure latitude and is difficult to get right so he or she did a good job with these pictures.

In the meantime, here is a sample of some of the images I’ve found.