1960 – Street view of Via Garibaldi in the Trastevere quarter of Rome, Italy. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
If you are a fan of old images you will want to check eBay and similar marketplaces for old photo prints, postcards, negatives, and slides. Often, these are offered as lots of various sizes, ranging from just ten images to several thousands. Of course, I tend to pick smaller lots as these are easier to review and handle. However, if you don’t have an idea of the actual content (as the sellers do not show any samples) you may go for larger lots as many images may not be useful for your purpose or do not meet your expectations.
This image is from a recent lot of 100+ color slides from a guy in Hamburg. They were shot by his father, who had died far too young. The slides were among his father’s belongings. In 1960, when he shot the images, he was a photography-enthusiastic high school graduate, just 19 years old and full of passion for photography. He had traveled to the Italian capital for the first time and tried out early forms of street photography in addition to rather traditional subjects like Forum Romanum or Vatican City.
Many of his images are sober and show Rome from an unusual, authentic angle at an exciting time that has ceased to exist. Other images show very little change over the seven decades that have passed. This turns the images into valuable time stamps worth to be preserved (in my view.)
This image, for example, is from the Trastevere quarter of the town. It was taken in front of the police station at Via Garibaldi, 45. The location is mostly unchanged today. Of course, it has been renovated and upgraded, for example by the addition of sidewalks, but the buildings and the cobblestone pavement have remained the same. Even the street lamps seem to be the same as in 1960.
The entire lot (including this slide) was shot on Agfacolor CT 18, a popular color daylight 50 ASA slide film in the 1960s that was considered as standard slide film by many amateur photographers in Germany until its discontinuation in 1985. The film delivered warm, pleasing colors, particularly in the rendering of skin tones, though this came at the expense of color accuracy. The slides were sharp, but grainy, and not particularly stable over long periods. (I can confirm this.) Even with proper storage, the slides exhibit very noticeable color shifts towards red after a few decades. Read more about this film at Wikipedia (in German.)
The slides of this lot came in glass frames, apparently framed directly by Agfa in their labs. The glass frames have aged and produced some ugly Newton rings, so I decided to remove them from their frames by carefully breaking the glass open and (literally) pulling the piece of film from the industrial glue that was used to hold the slide in the frame. But the effort was worth it, considering that the film was protected against damages for more than 70 years.
Here is the direct comparison of the unedited slide scan today, already after being removed from the glass frame, and its digitally remastered variant.
Awesome.
I really adore the images from this lot and will share a number of images over time.
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | c. 1960 |
| Location | Rome, Italy |
| Photographer | unknown |
| Image Source | 35 mm color slide, Agfacolor CT18 |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 4505 x 6825 Pixels |
| Copyright | Scan & Edit © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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