younger years are the best years

This picture goes with the picture below 'just an old man?'. The picture is of my grandad aged 17, which was about 65 years ago. The picture is just a standard portrait but with the other picture below I think it tells a story. This picture was taken just before my grandad went to fight in world war 2. At this time he would have just been a young man without having lived his life. I think this paints a very poignant picture as with the other picture we can see that he wouldn't have thought of a wife or having children. The picture was taken in the time of black and white basic photography with 6x6cm negatives. I found the picture whilst searching through old pictures and took the 'just an old man' in response to this one as it is my grandad over 60 years on. The picture is clearly a portrait and my grandad told me there were many of these taken of men in their smart clothes to give to parents and close relatives. The quality of the image is relatively good but obviously slightly grainy as it is old.

just an old man?

This picture really does mean something to me personally. Only some things in the picture are obvious to the viewer, these being the old man looking out of the window into the garden however it means so much more than that to me. This is my grandad sitting at the dining room having his afternoon tea, something that I never did quite understand, however my nan and grandad used to have this everyday. As well as my grandad there is the statue of the two people on the windowsill. This was given to my nan and grandad for their 60th wedding anniversary, to symbolise a very long marriage with a lot of hardship, including the war and rationing which came with it. Without showing my gran dad's face I can give the viewer an unidentified person that they can relate to themselves. It could potentially be any nan or grandad or mum or dad.

dolls house

Having a little look in my dolls house I thought this picture really captured the reality of the house and how every attention to detail had been considered and the display is so well thought out. The image is amusing as well as very neat. The doll shows the era of the house and the cutlery and other utensils seen helps to display an age which as I child I never understood. 'a picture tell one hundred words' really means something in this image, as it brings back a very happy childhood in which I played with the dolls in the doll house and made up stories about their lives however never understood the historic time which the doll would have been brought up in, had it been a real child like me.