I was blessed again today to spend the afternoon photographing my secret, frozen in time, location. I consider myself a modern-day renaissance man, but, as I continue to photograph the location, I keep wondering if we don’t live in a very overwhelming & confusing era. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Facebook, Twitter & (obviously) WordPress, but, this information age is a bit of a load on the old information processing system – the brain.
Today I found myself time traveling back to Center Hill, FL to about 1940. What triggered the quantum leap was finding a Time magazine, dated June 10, 1940 on the property that had a very haggard image of President Roosevelt on the cover. This was 6 months before the US entered WWII. I had to kick back on the dusty floor of the home that was built circa 1909 and page through to see what we, as a country, were dealing with back then. Lines that caught my eye where things like:
> “Producer Jack Warner was said to have banned the German language on the Warner lot. The studio declared this was obviously untrue since it would be impossible for many employees to communicate with each other.” (So we were still a nation full of prejudices)
> Charlie Chaplin was reported to have halted work on The Dictator “until such time as there is at least a change in the European war situation.” The Chaplin publicity department said this could not be true because Chaplin was hard at work cutting the film. (So we were still concerned with the lives of celebrities rather than real world issues)
>”Walt Disney has moved his entire staff to a new studio at Burbank, dropping some 400 people, about a quarter of his payroll, on the way.” (So we were still concerned about jobs and lay offs)
> “In the past fortnight the Federal Communications Commission has handed down two momentous decisions, one releasing Frequency Modulation broadcasting from the confines of experiment, the other locking television tight within it. By awarding FM the number one television sending band (44,000-50,000 kilocycles), FCC opened the heavens to FM broadcasting. Including the band it .had previously been allocated experimentally, it now has 42,000-50,000 kilocycles, will presently be able to spot stations all over the land. Meanwhile, television must plainly label television experimental, must readjust its transmitters in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to one of its other bands. Bubbling with confusion, excitement, hysteria, the radio industry, feeling the hot breath of revolution on its neck, last week gazed fitfully into the future. Some of its visions were sad, some glad.” (So the federal government was still sticking its fucking nose into the homes of private citizens)
But most of the magazine was focused on raising money for a national defence, defence contracts and the Europen war theater. (Some things never change)
After I put the magazine back where I found it, I went outside and laid in the grass by “Grandma’s Well Pump” (see image below)…looked up at the sky and looked at the bright, fluffy, white clouds and listened to the wind blowing through the Spanish moss-covered oak trees and day dreamed about life back then – pre-Facebook, pre-MySpace and pre-Twitter and oh ya…pre-FM radio. The US was on the brink of war but it still was a much simpler time. A quieter time. I wonder if the “Smith Family” knew how good they had it. I wonder if they ever laid in the grass and listened to the wind blow through the trees. Something tells me they did. There was no air conditioning back then and Central Florida in August is as hot as it is humid. I doubt being inside was much of an option!!
I am grateful to be a photographer in 2010 as it allows me to travel all over the world and today it allowed me to time travel to Center Hill, FL – 1940. Well, back to the future…
Below are the images I captured with my digital camera and manipulated with Photoshop with the modern, post FM Radio, HDR technique. I wish I could have lived back then and still had my MacBook, Nikon DSLRs and of coarse…my iPhone…the rest of 2010 you can keep 😉 Check back soon for more images of my secret time capsule location 🙂
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