{"id":7502,"date":"2015-11-25T10:30:45","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T15:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huntsville.dopperonline.ca\/?p=7502"},"modified":"2015-11-25T10:32:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T15:32:59","slug":"vintage-photos-have-lasting-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/vintage-photos-have-lasting-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Vintage photos have lasting appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nostalgia. Curiosity. Wonder. A simple, vintage, black and white image can evoke all of these things and more, and in an era of instant digital sharing they are a reminder of a time when we were required to be more patient, more selective, less impulsive.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We’ve always been compelled to share them, albeit in different ways prior to social media. The album of baby pictures shown to a first date. A post-dinner slideshow of the family vacation foisted upon unsuspecting guests. A precious few framed and hung for all to see.<\/p>\n

Today, when those vintage photos get hauled out of dust-covered shoeboxes long-forgotten in the attic or old albums stashed in the basement for decades, we\u2019re lucky if we can remember who\u2019s in them and where they were taken. Luckier still if we had the forethought to label them. But, always, they elicit a reaction.<\/p>\n

So perhaps it\u2019s not surprising that both online and on display, photos from Huntsville\u2019s past have generated sharing of memories, lively discussion, and even some disagreement.<\/p>\n

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An early aerial photo of Huntsville<\/p><\/div>\n

An improbable gallery<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you missed the display of photos from Wayne Baker\u2019s barbershop at the Huntsville Train Station, you missed a fascinating view into the lives of past residents and the town Huntsville once was.<\/p>\n

Wayne\u2019s father Rudy had begun hanging photos contributed by his customers in his shop in the old Empire Hotel and Wayne followed suit. His customers loved it and people often stopped in just to see the floor-to-ceiling gallery.<\/p>\n

Over time, they had accumulated too many to display at once and many were relegated to storage boxes to be pulled out later in rotation. As a result, many survived the Empire Hotel fire in 2009 and Wayne recently donated them to the Huntsville and Area Historical Society (HAHS). He was delighted with the response to the train station display.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people came in looking for their grandfather\u2019s or a relative\u2019s place. Or a place or person they recognized,\u201d said Baker. \u201cThings that would make them feel part of the picture. They really got excited about these pictures. I couldn\u2019t believe the way people took to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some were adamant that they knew the person or place in the photo, only to find it wasn\u2019t who or what they thought. On the day I visited, Ernie Holinshead was there with magnifying glass in hand to examine a photo he\u2019d seen earlier. The man pictured wasn’t who he had hoped.<\/p>\n\n\t\t