Blogfinger

My friend “Buddy”  and his prom date Georgene. 1959. He was the football quarterback and was in  every musical activity along with me. He went to West Point.

Bill Hutzel was the band director who changed the lives of so many of us at Rutherford High where most students were in music activities.  He taught me syncopation–a gift.

We were four close friends. Ross is in the trumpet section of the Rutherfordians dance band. I am in the front on alto sax (white mouthpiece) Ross became a judge.

Paul Goldfinger, MD     Editor Blogfinger.net

When we were kids my Dad used to take movies with a primitive 8 mm movie camera. We kept those negatives for many years in our basement, and we had long lost the projector to view them.   Recently we sent some of them to Legacybox, a company that converts media from one format to another.

We had ours made into DVD’s. We had no idea what to expect. Much of those movies were repetitive, but there were moments sufficient to elicit powerful emotions, recognitions, laughter and tears.

I had a set made for my brother and one for us.    The DVD’s could be popped into a DVD player and  set to play on our TV or into my computer using an Apple USB Super Drive.

It turns out that my Dad was a poor photographer, chopping off heads, moving too fast from one subject to another or up to the sky or down to our shoes.

Of course, there was no sound, and that really robbed the moments of an important component.  And he moved so fast, you couldn’t study much of the material.   But the worst part was the poor quality of the images. I guess there was some deterioration over the years.

The typical 8 mm movie of that time was where the subjects walk towards the camera, smile and wave; or, as with my brother,  he was always mugging, making faces and blowing his trombone.  He was and still is a character. And my mother, another character,  would dance around and mug.

I tried an experiment to produce still photographs from the movies on my computer screen by photographing rare compelling moments, just as a still photographer (like me) does routinely.  It is  needed because watching those movie clips showed everything going by too fast.

The challenge is to capture decisive moments, a la Cartier-Bresson.  It requires patience as you must get the exposure and focus right, and the light keeps changing in those videos, and then you must go back and then forward multiple times.  Then you have to do some fiddling around with the photo software.

And yet, it was strikingly profound to see these scenes from over 50 years ago; many of the cast of characters are now gone.  My Dad took scenes of my brother and me marching in parades, playing in concerts, and cavorting with family and friends.

My Dad had no interest in sports, so there are no movies of me playing soccer, tennis, football and basketball. Not once. But one thing he did was to take some clips at our senior prom and of the Rutherford High School marching and dance bands.

Some of the material was profoundly emotional, and I need to view them over to understand how such distant moving moments, some of which were fairly mundane, can have such impact now.

I was absolutely floored when I saw  my friends  with our beautiful dates.    We all looked profoundly happy that night at the Rutherford High School Senior Prom.  My friends and I all went with Junior girls.

The memories came flooding back:  rented tuxedos, flowers in our lapels, gowns, crinolines, cars,  and corsages, but mostly the laughter, the wonder of it all— and the music.

I am in the process of sending some samples to my friends from that time.  The results are pretty good, but all things considered, it is miraculous to have them—the content and not the quality are what counts. I am posting some samples now and more  later.

My friend Jeff with Janie. He drove me into “the City” on the back of his motor scooter. She had parties in her basement; lights out time. Janie became a lawyer. Jeff a banker.

Charlie played sax in the dance band and sat next to me. He played football. Here he fills in on tuba. He became a very successful engineer selling giant pumps to the Chinese.

RHS Marching Band. Memorial Day Parade, 1959. Ah! Those beautiful girls. Sweet music.

I hope to post more of these photos as I take my time unearthing them from the shadows of time.  I will show up when I can find a decent shot.

And so will Carla my prom date, Eileen, Bro’ Mel and others who were part of my life, including more fun at the prom and in the band.

EMMY ROSSUM: