JPZ Photographic Technique

We have seen that JPZ had a favorite pose for children.  Here are his son Eugene and his grandson Martin:

We've also found a couple of photo portraits of JPZ as a young man:

Here is John Peter Zdrojewski at the time of his First Holy Communion:

When in the course of time his son Eugene became a Communicant, JPZ reproduced the pose as far as practicable.  If you click to enlarge these photos, you can see detail of the cut of the suits and the style of the shoes, in addition to things being held in opposite hands, and so on.

If anyone has FHC photos of Casimir or John, send them to me and I'll put them up.

Here is a colorized version of Eugene's FHC photo.  How was this done?  The color does not look painted on.  I like the grapevine wallpaper.

Now, on the back of Gene's photo is his handwriting.  He's eight years old, and he is practicing his cursive writing:

 

 JPZ took is grandchildren around to multiple churches for interior shots in their FHC garb.  Marty looks like a redhead, but "the Shadow knows."

Photographer's notation on the back says "stained windows for background - green brown red etc."

In the case of my own colorized print, there is indeed some kind of color gunk applied to the print.  You can see it on the print, and you can see where a bit has rubbed off at each corner onto the matting.  Lordy, it's really yucky-looking!  I look like a Hummel figure reject.

Can anyone fill us in on print colorizing techniques, older and more recent?  With digital images, the whole idea is now quaint.

Julie

Gene and the Grandfather Clock

EJZ as a high-school senior, I would say.  Notice the case clock in the background.

I remember that rocker - it was in the kitchen by the time I was sitting in it.

On a Mac, at least, you can enlarge the picture with one left-click.  See the Nativity scene at the base of the Christmas tree?  What are those two pillar-looking things on either side of it?  Hmmm, pillars, probably.  It's bringing the church into the house.

I must say, if I came home to that particular Christmas tree, I would vow to plant evergreens when I grew up.  Wouldn't anyone?

Julie

Niagara Falls

Remember when the Army Engineers shut off the American side of Niagara Falls? It was 1969; I was fifteen; my brother and cousins were older and way cooler; a party of us trudged around the riverside looking at the desolation and being freaked out by the silence.

Paul Zadner sent these photos recently, in one of his world-famous mass emailings. According to the text in that email, a guy named Russ Glasson was visiting his in-laws, somewhere, around 1990, and found these first six photos in the in-laws' garage.

The idea was to remove all this talus.  Ha!  Look at it all. They would need Picard and the Enterprise get rid of it, with triple shifts on the beamer machines. They settled for putting in cable reinforcements.  The business lasted six months.  Those in the local tourism trades despaired in the short run, and then in the long run because the more talus collects, the sooner the Falls flattens out.  

This last Glasson in-law photo is in the Niagara Falls Wikipedia article.  See the coffer dam way up on the right?

Postcard image from the email, with things back to crashing normal.

And here, Ta-da! Ta-da!, is the Maid of the Mist doing her thing.

We went on the Maid of the Mist in what looks like 1958.  Here are Marty, Clara, Gene, and Julie.  Who is taking the picture?  I remember Aunt Gertrude and Aunt Florence were also of the party that day. Tom, were you there?  I remember them, and everyone, wearing big thick rubber raincoats with hoods.  I remember going down into a basementlike concrete place with lots of black raincoats on hooks.  I remember the noise of the Falls, the scent of the river, and the spray in my face. Couldn't see anything.  But who could?  The other impressions were made indelibly.

Gene Studying

Exam time approaches once again.  Hurrah.   So that hardworking students everywhere can know that they are not alone, we feature today a snapshot of Eugene Zdrojewski doing the Polish equivalent of "swotting."

This looks like an Orchard Lake classroom, and the youth appears college-age.  So we guess it is c.1942.

Studiuj, Eugeniusz!

"Wartime" Series

The man who produced "Wartime" produced it as part of a series.

No. 1:
By the way, the fact that JPZ is perusing a scrapbook while EJZ is still off in China suggests that EJZ came home on leave after basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and U Chicago language school, brought photos with him, began the scrapbook, then deployed.

No. 2:

No. 3:

No. 4:
The framed portrait is Uncle Stanley, right?  JPZ's youngest brother.  Who is the monk in  the painting?  Notice the Polish Eagle on the cover of the book in JPZ's right hand.  I wonder what the one is that he's drawing forth with his left hand. Neither volume is upstairs in the trove.

In No. 3, the portrait on the wall looks to be of Elizabeth Ann Seton, founder and reformer of hospitals and schools, and the first American to become a Catholic Saint. Since Mother Seton died in 1821, that would have to be a watercolor, not a photo. Or am I blind, and that's a photo of a new relative?

In  No.4, we have Stanley Zdrojewski, right?

Also in No.4, the book being taken up is William Shirer's Berlin Diary.  A must-read.  Shirer broadcast radio from Berlin throughout the war.

Update:  JFZ notes:  "Julie,   Thank you for these pictures. It demonstrates how intellectual this man was despite having only a few high school courses! This may be Uncle Stanley since the picture more resembles him than Uncle Joe. But, the woman could be Julia Mostkowska Zdrojewska, a more likely  candidate for a picture in this location at this time (still in WWII) than Elizabeth Ann Seaton.

John"

Adam

Clara Haremska married Adam Matynka, at the conclusion of a courtship containing at least one exciting episode:  Adam biffed a guy who was being fresh and trying to maul Clara.  Adam spent a night in jail.  Clara was favorably impressed.

Perfect in his role as defender of his family, he was fearsome to bad guys while soft-spoken and affectionate to his household, especially the children and grandchildren.

His mother was of the Michalski family.  I know absolutely nothing about them.

[  EDIT:  Adam was one of 8 children of Marcin Matynka and Katarzyna Michalska.  See the Matynka page of this blog.  ]

His children were Gertrude, Clara Adamina, and Thomas.  Clara, CAMZ, took these photos of her "Dad."  My memory has a clear, strong recording of my mother's voice saying "Dad."

I don't know whose picnic this was, but the sack race looks well-subscribed.  Second from the right is Clara's friend "Eddie."  I hope the man in the shirt and tie won the race.

More friends from the teen years.  That stable looks like a converted factory.

Adam and CHM in the kitchen at 554 Walden Avenue.  By the time I was around to notice, they had installed kitchen cupboards above the sink and the stove.  But this view is as the house was since being built in 1870 or so.  Such high ceilings!

Here are Adam and daughter Clara in the stands at a football game involving Columbia.  This is later, 1948 or 1949, after Gene and Clara were married, and while Clara was living at home in Buffalo with her parents, while Gene was in a dorm room at Columbia.  That's what they could afford, so that's what they did.

 Adam Matynka drove a city bus, i.e., he was a driver and conductor for Niagara Frontier Transit Corporation.

When it was time to go downtown to shop for school clothes at Hengerer's or sometimes Berger's, Mom would take me there on my grandfather's bus.  We would sit behind the driver.  It was wonderful.

Dziadzi of course had a change dispenser that looked like this, although it seems to me that his had more compartments.  When he retired, he gave it to us kids.  Now it is lost.  It's not that we did not think it was terrific; we did; we just thought everything would last forever without care or effort on our part.

Julie

Eugene Zdrojewski Childhood Portrait