A super-winner, Bill!!!

I apologize for the beat-up negatives, but they are more than 70 years old, and you wouldn't believe how much my files have traveled over those years. Anyway, I can't re-shoot them.

Harbor of Nice, France in 1946 after WW II


Saiboat in Mediterranean harbor of Nice, 1946


Artist at work (1946) on docks of the harbor of Nice

These playful GIs created numerous such "murals" on various walls of the Fürstenfeldbruck Army Air base in 1946, when they were bored with the military occupation. Eventually the base was returned to the postwar Bundeswehr Luftwaffe, who probably thought "How could these crazy Americans have defeated us?"

I loved taking silhouette photos, especially with B/W film and a twin-lens (Rolleiflex) camera. These were taken more than 70 years ago in a junk yard for Nazi war planes. The first one won first prize in an Army Air Force photo contest in Occupied Germany.

My first silhouette photo - 1946


My second silhouette photo,shot 5 minutes later

Before and after shots, fifteen years apart. The rebuilt terminal's spare, modernistic architecture has lost the comfortable ambience of the ornate old building IMHO, but I doubt that the 1962 travelers remember the pre-war terminal. One thing for sure: every Frankfurt citizen wanted to forget the 1944 Allied air raid.

1947 - Frankfurt's central railroad terminal after WW II air raids


1962 - Frankfurt's rebuit central railroad terminal

Some old black-and-whites from my archives. My work over more than 60 years consisted mainly of black-and-white images - both professional and personal. Color films of those times were unreliable, especially in storage.

Paris nun in front of Notre Dame Cathedral - 1947


American artist in his studio - 1951


Horse-drawn moving van in Nice, French Riviera - 1946

My office assigned an assistant to help me climb with my equipment (no elevator), so I asked him to take a photo of me at work/ I got a $50 bonus. Tim, eight years later, I was sent there again to shoot the tower with a 250-ft extension (now 1,000-ft high and dangerously overloaded until the lower platform was dismantled. That was the only day I had clearance, but only the crew supervisor went up with me because a hurricane was threatening the Baltimore area. The quick shots of empty girders had no interest, but the overloaded tower sure did. I didn't get a bonus that time, and I never saw any of the shots in print.

A few very different career paths. The lady in the second frame was working with coconuts in Jamaica's Pikapeppa plant.

Two ironworkers 750 feet above Baltimore


Production line in a hot sauce plant


Brewmaster in an international brewery

I spent years criss-crossing the country, creating records of American (and immigrant) workers building and operating all kinds of industry.

"Burning" experimental wafers of computer chips


Battery charging room for electric lift trucks


Gas pipeline being insulated


Constructing new municipal sewer system

Manhattan Island is only one of several boroughs forming New York City, but it is the prime image of NYC in the public mind of the world. This view of 42nd Sreet emphasizes the arrow-straight cross-street plan, east to west. The north-south avenues, however, had to configure somewhat to the shorelines.

I used a Plaubel Veriwide 100 rollfilm camera with a fixed Schneider Super-Angulon f/8 lens, 6cm x 9 cm negative (2-1/4" x 3-1/2").

Manhattan's arrow-straight 42nd Street, looking East (ca. 1970)

Thank you for your comment, Photogirl! I'm just glad I made it off that ice in time.

Thank you, Tim, especially for the four smilies! You might be interested in the fact that this was a scheduled PR "event" so there were other photographers on hand, which was the goal of the sponsors. But the sponsor would never have approved releasing this photo, since his product was very small in the image, while his employees looked like startled businessmen. I and the other photogs supplied what the sponsors wanted, but I grabbed this image while the stage was being prepared for a demonstration of the Moon Buggy in operation. I had time for only one exposure before the relationship of the men and the machine changed. At the time (about 1968 or 1970), I never expected this image to retain any interest over 50 years! I suspect everybody in the picture is dead now.

Many thanks for your comment, Photogirl! I appreciate it.

Thank you, Vicki, for the kind comments.

Thanks, Bill. That pic was slumbering in my files, just like a lot of UFO reports are sandwiched in forgotten D.C. offices.