Found WW1 glass plates 'The Lost Diggers'

<p>I came across this on Facebook the other day, through the Passchendael Memorial Museum page.<br>

Incredible re-discovered collection of 3000 glass plate photographs taken in a small town of Vignacourt, near Amiens, France. All taken by a husband and wife during the Great War. The pictures show portraits and street views of Allied Soldiers of all nations, including the US, UK and Australia, who came through or billeted in their town.<br>

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The pictures have lain undisturbed in an old barn attic for 95 years, until they were recently sniffed out by a "Sunday Night" TV crew.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/diggers-at-play-frozen-in-time-20110226-1b97y.html">News Article in the Sydney Morning Herald</a><br>

<a href="http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunday-night/blogs/article/-/article/8900933/the-lost-diggers/">Lost Diggers on Sunday Night Website</a><br>

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/lostdiggers#!/lostdiggers?sk=photos">Photo Archive on The Lost Diggers</a> Facebook page</p>

<p>What I found incredibly interesting is that a lot of folks have been able to identify people in this collection and contacting their relatives, even after so much time. Sometimes it's the only image they've ever seen of their grandfathers and uncles.</p>

<p>A different kind of 'found film' indeed.</p>

 

<p>It'll take a while to get through all of them, but I will. Fabulous.</p>

<p>Wow.</p>

<p>Thanks very much.</p>

<p>I can see this happening again a hundred years from now. A Hasselblad H4D-60 is found in someone's garage.</p>

<p>Awesome. Fascinating resource. Thanks, Rick</p>

<p>Sadly, I can't see it from flash memory cards in 100 years. Modern NAND flash cards won't remember that long. They are full of errors, hidden by error correcting code. The bits slowly fail, the charge leaks away. They'll all be mush in 10 to 20 years.<br>

I suppose I should point my mother at them, see if my grandfather is in them.</p>

 

<p>Rick, Wow! And I thought I had some (50 year old) treasures in my old shoebox! Thanks for the links. Best, LM.</p>

<p>Great! Glass was a wonderful base for emulsion, save the fragility factor. The detail is fantastic on some of those.</p>

<p>This is fabulous, thanks for putting this up, a real treasure. So many young Aussies were lost in this campaign, kind of haunting to see these. Of course they just recently discovered the remains of some diggers in this area, that were hastily buried by German troops, and now finding their way home.</p>

<p>Thanks Rick! I'm going to dig through there and look for my great grandfather, an American soldier in WWI. These are an amazing find. Curious that it came to light after the last U.S. WWI veteran died last week.</p>

<p>Yes, kind of sad that Frank Buckner died so shortly after turning a 110. WW1 History disappearing from living memory.<br>

The European History Channel was running the "Last Voices from World War 1" documentary recently. Nearly all of the people interviewed in it have already passed away as shown at the end of every episode.</p>

<p>The Aussies units that came to Vignacourt came straight from Gallipoli, "Out of the frying pan...". How Winston Churchill's career ever survived that I still don't quite understand.</p>

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Amazing . Glass is indeed a great medium. I've had the idea of a novel playing in my head set during WW1(AEF) my home in the US, France, and Occupied Germany.

<p>Well if you need any help with historical details, uniforms and equipment wise, you know where to find me ;)</p>