Not AI

 

Reminding drivers to slow down when entering our garage?

Modern cars can be very smart; sometimes frustratingly so. Even if you appreciate the thought, being repeatedly told to "keep your eyes on the road" (when you are actually scanning for potential danger) can become a bit annoying. I call these systems "AS-AA" - Artificially Smart (AS) until they aren't; then they become AA (Actually Annoying). "AS-AA" should be said, "ASS-AHH!" - as if it were a martial arts call, yelled while delivering the coup de grace. You will be surprised how much this helps.

"Keep your eyes on the road".
"ASS-AHH!" 
(Slapping the steering wheel with your hand at the same time may also help).

One useful thing, though, is automatic speed limit detection. Our car is reasonably good at detecting speed limit changes and providing a warning when we exceed that limit by a margin. Except... in our small retirement village, there is a 5km speed limit, signalled by a custom private sign, which the car recognises correctly when we enter the village. This is good; we don't want to race through the village. BUT there is no exit sign to signal the return to 50km/hr when we leave the village. The consequence is that we then drive around town with the car beeping because it is exceeding 5km/hr in what is actually a 50km/hr zone. "ASS-AHH!"

After a month of living with this annoyance, we printed our own speed limit sign to hang on the back wall of the garage. The car recognises the sign when parking and is ready for the in-town speed when it goes out next time. Problem solved. Mostly.

The first Photograph

 

Well, I am at least 99% sure that this must be the first photograph I ever took. The year was 1952, the place was Perth, Scotland. My Mother and I had gone on holiday to see Dad, who was in Scotland doing survey work for the Ordnance Survey. That's them outside their tent - my tent was on the left.

I am pretty sure that I must have been the photographer, because there were only the three of us there, and the height at which the camera was being held seems to be that of a young child. Mum is looking proud, Father somewhat anxious about the camera. Clearly, I had yet to learn about taking pictures without things growing out of people's heads! This, though, must have been the start of a life-long affair with cameras.

Now, seventy-four years later, I carry two memories of that trip: The first was lying in bed at night and listening to the night train whistling in the distance as it went south to London. The second was playing in the tent with the new, yellow, Dinky-toy bulldozer that I got for my fourth birthday. It's surprising which memories stay and which fade; there is a photograph of me with "Bovril" the heifer, but I have no memory of the encounter, nor of actually taking this picture of Mum and Dad.

This picture is, of course, a digital reproduction of a physical photograph, from an actual album. I know that because I and my memories are part of the provenance for the image. I wonder, though, in a world where AI can reproduce an image from any era, with any subject, what value one can now place on any digital image, or even a print from a digital image, as being a representation of reality? It's all too easy today to create any digital 'reality' you like.  Perhaps I should take much greater care of my analogue negatives; one day a strip of Ilford XP2 may be the only proof of truth.

Real Photo Postcards - an early Instagram

As a life-long photographer, I am ashamed to say that I had never heard of "Real Photo PostCards" (RPPCs). RPPCs, it turns out, were the original 'Instagram'. Perhaps a little less "Insta" but filling exactly the same social purpose, a century before Instagram invaded our phones and eyeballs. RPPC pictures were of your life; the words, short descriptions and wishes for a friend or relative. Your personal 'feed' was probably an old shoe-box.

A sales brochure for the "3A Folding Brownie"

 

 It was 1903 when Kodak brought out the "3A Folding Brownie". It used a 122 format film that produced up to ten postcard-sized negatives (3.25" x 5.5") on a cartridge. These negatives could be contact printed onto postcard-sized photographic paper with a pre-printed postcard-style backing. Write your message, address the card and post. 

 

In those days, there were strict requirements for postcards; they had to be a certain size and, initially, the reverse side could only contain an address but, in 1902, UK regulations changed and the reverse was split in two, permitting both the address and a short message on the back.
The "Real Photo" part of their title was intended to differentiate these photo postcards from commercially mass-printed postcards. RPPCs were (almost) unique and very personal. So ubiquitous was this style of postcard that many were never sent through the post, but were simply printed and kept as personal photographs with annotations on the back. 

This one, from 1924, was probably sent as part of a larger 'care package' to a father working away from home.

Clearly, some commercial photographers offered RPPC prints as part of their portrait service. The following, 1919, example is one of two copies of the same picture, but with different reverse sides:

 

For the modern observer, there's something deeply evocative about the tactile connection represented by these cards. The "Real Photo Postcard" aesthetic isn't just about the chemistry of the print; it's about the weight of a message intended for a specific set of eyes. It’s a reminder that while our tools have evolved from silver salts to digital pixels, the core human urge to say Here I am, and I wanted you to see this, remains exactly the same.

So, there you have it; Real Photo Postcards - the early 1900s "Instagram".