Any children of the 80s who don't remember these? Or maybe it is unique to American beach culture? Anyway. Salesmen (always remarkably winsome, sandy haired & white toothed) would travel the beaches, long chains of these little viewscopes jangling from their bags, approaching groups of teens and appealing to their vanity. You'd pose for some photos, suck in your belly, and try to get the cutest guy in your group to pose with his arm around you.
Well I seem to have possessed a good bit of vanity, because I amassed quite a collection of these. All from the years 1988 - 1991, and documenting all the bad hairdos one embraces in the high school years. But OH. THE SKINNY LEGS. THE FLAT STOMACHS. THE SMOOTH SKIN. Did I really, REALLY obsess over my stomach 'pooching'??
Anyway. The "crappy coincidence" part of this story is that I uncovered my stash of these right before taking off on a family beach vacation, the first extended one since Lars was 3 months old. And let's just say that photos of a 2009 Kirsten On The Beach are not quite as..... inspirational.
So the next few posts will be chock-full of lovely Delaware beach photos of my gorgeous kids that I would sacrifice every inch of smooth skin for, as well as a few of their equally gorgeous dad (who only gets gorgeous-er with age). But if you're hoping for a bikini shot, well, I'll just invoke the Sopranos: fuggeddabboudit.
But P.S. : is there anyone out there who's ever transferred these tiny Viewfinder pictures to real photos? There are some crackers in there of Clare and Desiree..... ;)
4 comments:
Yes, I did. I scanned them and then chucked them. I just pried the ends off, took out the negatives and then used my scanner's transparency adapter to scan them as slides. Worked like a charm.
Heather, I knew I could count on your technical expertise!!! Now: "scanner's transparency adapter" - is this a piece of equipment I would have, or is it something I need to buy? And (here is a total novice question) would my printer/fax/scanner machine be up to such a task??
If you make this work, you MUST share.
I'm from Florida, and while, granted, the beach scene was so NOT "me," I did occasionally head over there for, like, Astronomy Club trips to view space shuttle launches and stuff. Never saw these little trinkets. Must be a local thing up there.
How many of the contraptions do you have? If it's just a handful of them, and they're not too embarrassing, just send them to me and I'll scan them for you. 'Twould only take a few minutes. But otherwise, yes, it's probably something you have to buy and I'm guessing your all-in-one might not be up to the task?? But I don't know. Basically it's just a light thing-a-majobey that you plug in to shine through the negative. How's that for technical expertise?!
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