Nostalgia & History > Would you hire this painter? Care to provide a caption?

OK, so here are 2 pictures of the MILW depot in Hopkins, MN, both taken by Bruce Black. They were taken exactly 1year apart, the first one on May 30, 1974 and the second one on May 30, 1975.

I have not altered the color from the original slides. Obviously it got a paint job between these shots .... but doesn't something seem odd with the paint job? Maybe painter was a modeler and liked to do 'weathering'. Looks like it lost it's MILW herald and had a re-roofing done too.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/17 15:28 by valmont.

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I think the sun probably was shining on it in the second photo.

Are they both the same film, e.g., Kodachrome?  Why would he be in Hopkins on May 30 in sucessive years.  In the second picture it looks like the depot is getting a new roof.  It can't be the sun since only one part of the depot changed color.

A real mystery. 

Marty

Look at the difference in the middle power pole behind the depot.

Marty

MartyBernard Wrote:
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> Are they both the same film, e.g., Kodachrome? 
> Why would he be in Hopkins on May 30 in sucessive
> years.  In the second picture it looks like the
> depot is getting a new roof.  It can't be the sun
> since only one part of the depot changed color.
>
> A real mystery. 
>
> Marty

Bruce had some 'regular' times he'd head to some of his favorite haunts, the Twin Cities was one of them and he made annual treks there when he had time off from work. And I agree, the upper portion is clearly a yellow/cream color, it's no longer gray, that, along with the same 'peeling pattern' is my point in the post.

              I'll go with the sun on this side in the second photo and possible a dreary day on the first.  Personally I don't thin a painter has done any work here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/17 15:41 by dcfbalcoS1.

I think you all are getting what I was seeing too, that color shift is dramatic, but a painter surely couldn't have duplicated the same peeling pattern :-) it's to similar in many places.

Go to the coast in Oregon and check out the houses, water side looks like the peeling side of the depot,
other side is pristine. Don't be blaming the painter!

Out

I am going with the unfiltered light in the second as opposed to the light overcast colors in the first. Sun angle also seems different.

Bruce had a younger relative in the Twin Cities whom Bruce helped financially while he was in dental school. Part of that was a free annual dental check up. Bruce always took advantage of anything free.

The difference I see is that the unpeeling wood is newer clapboards and the peeling areas are original or at least, quite old.  It could also be that the painter didn't fully 'prep' the siding (scrape, sand, etc).  Throw in that it's also likely the 2nd paint job didn't have a primer applied first, and/or, a cheap house-brand paint from a national home repair center was used, which lasts about 2-3 years, in my experience.  I have all the above situations on my house.  A full shed dormer was added about 35 years ago and the house got new cedar shake siding on the backside where the dormer was added.  The rest of the house still has the original 67 year old cedar shakes that have been OK cared for these years. Even putting good paint with primer over properly prepared original shakes with cheap paint previously (my bad) has significant peeling issues after 8 years.  Now I get to start all over again in spring.

There is another oddity to the second photo, namely the shadow of the semiphore pole.
One shadow goes up the side of the building, the other across the train tracks.
Doesn't make any sense, does it?

Same paint job in each pic, new roof on the main part of the building in #2. The pole shadow in the foreground of pic 2 is from a pole to the right of and behind the photographer. There are no shadows in pic #1 because of the overcast day, and the ambient colors are more bluish. If you look carefully at the patterns of paint flaking, they are the same in each pic.

The shadow on the ground is not from the semaphore.  There is no shadow of the ladder and the sun is behind and to the right of the photographer.  The shadow has to be a power pole to the right of the photographer. 

All the speculation about the paint deteriorating that much in less that a year, i.e., between two consecutive May 30ths, can't be right.

Valmont, was it the same film for both photos?

Marty

It looks like somebody was scraping the end of the building and never got around to painting it. Look at the bare spots, on the end and on the front. The bare spots are all the some. Even the White spots on the lower part are still White. Must have been using Sherwood-Williams paint at one time.  Latex primmer at that.   upkpfan

I agree with dcfbalcoS1 and valmont.  Same depot, same paint...just extremely different days with different sky lighting.  Peeling appears basically the same with the same coat of paint, so no re-painting was involved and this goes for the entire structure(s).  Only change I see is the roof and the cross-arm removed from the power pole at end of the depot.  A bit different angle there I presume let this pole cover the red sign on that end of the depot.

That's a drastic change in color for just going from a dull day to a brighter late afternoon.  Look at the white sign to the lower right of the front bay windows.  It went from dull white to just slightly yellow.  The wood around it went from a dull light brown to a bright yellow.  No way a little sunlight can do both those two things.

Marty

"Sweet Light" in that second photo!  Brings out much warmer tones and strikes that much of a difference in similar photos I have taken.

I had to prove it for myself.  So, I did a 'save as' on each picture and zoomed in using Photoshop Elements.  I cropped each one to roughly the same size and location, and looked/compared the two pictures flipping back and forth.

As seen below, the missing paint locations are the same.  Particularly note the vertical edge/trim board on the bay window.  The bare spots are the same.

So, I'm guessing that perhaps two different types of film were used as well as different lighting.  But I'll throw in manual color corrections were made after the photos/slides were scanned.  I've experienced a slew of variations in my scanner as well, most notably underexposing some slides and overexposing others.  Automatic scanner software color correction could be to blame as well.


 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/17 07:53 by BRAtkinson.

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cjvrr

Please explain how "sweet light" wotks in technical terms, i.e., how it is different than regular light, and show us some of your photos.  Thanks.

Marty

Marty,

Try this:

http://digitalphotoacademy.com/the-sweet-light/