A photograph never grows old.

Last night I spent a couple of blissful hours looking through my dear Grandpa's old glass slides.  I was instantly transported back to my glorious childhood where most school holidays were spent at my grandparents house in Sheffield with 12 grandchildren gallivanting around.  Our favourite pastime was playing in Grandpa's Dentist Surgery which was attached to the house complete with a Waiting Room, Surgery & Workshop.  We would spend hours in there playing in the dentist chair!  Grandpa very rarely came in to make sure we weren't destroying everything & even when he did he would just walk through & go out the back door & leave us to it!  I remember the only time he raised an eyebrow to us (yes, the dreaded eyebrow raise!) was when my cousin Jennifer had stuffed a load of cotton swabs in my mouth as she'd had to pull all my teeth out!

Second to playing Dentists was the excitement of Grandpa bringing his old projector & photo slides out for us to look at.  We'd set about organising the room; some of us drawing the curtains & some running off to the Waiting Room & pulling the two giant black cushions from the sofa (which were incredibly itchy on the back of our little legs!) through to the lounge, set ourselves up on the floor with Grannie plying us with bowls of chopped up apple, raisins and sometimes a stick of cheese!  I would sit as close as I could to the projector so I could smell & feel the heat coming from the bulb.  I loved watching Grandpa putting each slide in upside down before slipping it in front of the light & the ooohing & aaaahing would start from all of us along with the giggles & comments about our Aunties & Uncle in their younger years!  Seeing the images again as an adult I'm blown away by how good a photographer Grandpa was.  He had such a good way of capturing the atmosphere of a moment in his life; not just in the many family outings with camera in hand but also in the posed shots of his children & candid shots of every day happenings (like the one below of my aunty pretending to put make up on!).  His photo's were tack sharp & exposed so beautifully that the colours on the slide really pop!  I really wish I'd have discovered my penchant for photography whilst he was still with us; we'd have spent hours pouring over photographs & I know he'd have been eager to learn about digital photography.  I can just picture him now with his glasses on the end of his nose studying my Canon 50d with me next to him geeking out together!

I adore this.  My mum & Grannie.

Very Cartier-Bresson; Non?

Check out that DOF!

Playing make-up!