Today’s photos come from James Blilie, but they’re not his—they were taken by his dad. He explains below; click on the photos to enlarge them.
My Dad served in the US Army Air Force in WWII, flying a full tour of combat missions (35 when he was in) in the 8th Air Force over Germany and occupied France. When the Korean war broke out, he was called up in 1950 or 1951. Since he’d done his full combat duty, he was assigned to Military Air Transport, where he continued to fly as a navigator on cargo airplanes. He was mainly based in Tachikawa Air Base in Japan; but also flew frequently into Clark Field near Manila in the Philippines, Taipei, and Taegu and other fields in Korea: The work involved supplying US forces in Korea.
When he was not on duty, he wandered the areas around the air bases. These photos are ones that he took around Tachikawa, Japan and around Manila in the Philippines.
I am stunned at how many great shots he got. He was really in the groove when he was taking these. As one commenter on FB said: He really knew how and when to snap the decisive moment with portraits.
These are, of necessity, my interpretations of my Dad’s negatives. I think he would approve. I cropped the images, adjusted exposure and contrast, occasionally spotted out a distracting element, and spotted out the dust (some of my dust-spotting is sub-optimal). But the final versions are quite close to the originals.
The first two are street photos from Manila in the Philippines. These are just people he photographed in the street. No idea who they are.
The next bunch are all from the vicinity of Tachikawa, Japan.
Scanner: Epson V500 Perfection (current model is V600). Wonderful scanner for precision work.
Processing: Lightroom 5. I am a beginner at processing B&W negatives in LR. I may choose
a different SW package in the future. Fortunately, LR does not modify the original images.
I have resized these in order to email them.