Dad's archive: Laguna Seca 1960 photos

ablank135

ablank135

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Hi, all. If you'll indulge me, I thought I'd share some of my dad's race-day photography from Laguna Seca. He was one of many "unofficial" track photographers back in the day, and shot (not races) for newspapers in the Bay Area from the late '50s through the early '60s. I'll start with a couple and post more as time goes on. Starting with (not yet Sir) Stirling Moss. Some of you Monterrey types will be able to pick out track corners and landmarks, but the trees along the corkscrew...those are definitely long gone.

Enjoy!

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A few more...
 

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@ablank135 , you should consider donating copies or the originals of these photos to the Revs Institute in Naples FL They have a free online database of over 500k car related photos that will be preserved into the future.


library.revsinstitute.org

The Revs Digital Library

The mission of the Library and Archives is to support the scholarly and instructional work of the Revs Institute staff, volunteers, and user community.
library.revsinstitute.org library.revsinstitute.org
 
The hay bales always remind me of Elvis' stupid, but highly entertaining Viva Las Vegas...and since I wasn't old enough to, or live in an area where they raced funny furrin cars in the late 50's/early 60's.., the last pic with the Birdcage Maser looks like a slot car track my neighbor had..and love the 66 program...Spencer; a Buick, Opel, Ferrari dealer! ..and a race queen that even Elvis could love.
 
Great shots, your Dad must have been into photography pretty deep for those days.
 
That was back when the track was in the middle of Ford Ord active training. I remember walking along the outside of the track on the trails and finding shell casings everywhere. Started going to the races with my dad when I was about 12 in the early 70's. Anyone else remember the Chaparral 2J? The "Vacuum" car. Bruce McLaren in the Can Am series is still clear in my mind.
 
ablank135 said:
Negatives. I know the contrast is all over the place, and the original processing was...inconsistent. I'm sure there's a better way to convert these.
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The better way probably involves giving them to some pro photolab that has really expensive, dedicated equipment and then giving them a pail of money. Not being cynical, just realistic. I think you're doing a great job, and am really enjoying your posts.

I expect a number of us have run into similar tasks/conundrums with our parents' photos. You should see how many slides my father took!

-Dan
 
What they are is what they are at this point, but still highly entertaining; thanks Ablank, again.
And thanks for the advice on old negs, Dan, as I have a few older than these of Indy (grandma was from Indy), from the era that (I think) Fangio said "the drivers were fat and the tires were skinny"...Wasn't sure what to do with them...I'll start working on that pail.
Early color shot, and said grandma, mom, ggrandma, and late brother Richard, c. 1948
 

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Nice photo's!
Scanning the negatives indeed is costly.

This reminds me of a story of what we had in our family. My granddad lived with my father's family in France in the 50's. Doing quite well, they enjoyed beach holidays in the Cote D'azur, Monaco and so on.
In the inheritance were a few dozen boxes full of negatives, all marked "holiday year xyz". We had the scanned, hoping to be able to reduce them to a few interesting ones that we could the email to the whole family, giving them all a few nice Family shots to hang on a wall (or stuff in a drawer).

So, after picking up the originals and the scanned photo's on a USB stick, we gathered the next weekend with a couple of relatives that live close to us to review the ~1000 pictures. We were setup with chips, beer wine and all good to go.

Starting the slide deck we got a nice story of packing the car, driving around very empty countryside, nice scenic views, and the first campsite.
Next day was beach day. So were most the following 14 days.
We were all hoping for that nice family shot with some scenic background.
What we got however was more of a Miss Universe contest!

Turns out half of the pictures, 500 of them or so, are of ladies in bathing suits that no-one recognized as any member of the family!

Yes, we do have that nice family picture.
We also have a very in depth research into 50's bathing attire.
 
eriknetherlands said:
Nice photo's!
Scanning the negatives indeed is costly.
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My solution has been the Kodak Mini Digital Film Scanner, which has color, etc., adjustment capabilities, but probably does better with color slides than negatives. It's a relatively inexpensive solution with multiple format capability, and decent resolution, but seems to struggle with contrast features on negatives. Adequate for now...
 
dave v. in nc said:
What they are is what they are at this point, but still highly entertaining; thanks Ablank, again.
And thanks for the advice on old negs, Dan, as I have a few older than these of Indy (grandma was from Indy), from the era that (I think) Fangio said "the drivers were fat and the tires were skinny"...Wasn't sure what to do with them...I'll start working on that pail.
Early color shot, and said grandma, mom, ggrandma, and late brother Richard, c. 1948
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It appears that the photographer panned with the car in that first image. Pretty darn cool. I'd never heard that Fangio quote before - funny.
 
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