Paul P. and Jason , I learned about the site from an article in the Pacific Sun. I have turned a few people on to it that are now members. Word of mouth is the best (referals ). I quit advertizing and all my work is from people I know. I think Paul P. is right about the old photos. Most people didn't want to be a slave to a camera and like myself , I never carried a lunchbox to school after first grade , or even a jacket to school , because I knew it would be warm later when I got out and didn't want to lug anything around while playing. I did get into taking pictures for a while , but they were not protected and got lost. Jason , I don't think you are going to find many old photos of the things you would like , probably only a handfull of people were smart enough to take pictures like the great works of Paul P. The best thing is to pay attention to what people write , weather you believe them or not , you can gleen much more information from that than anything else.
Paul, how did you learn about this site and how do you think we might be able to attract more people like you? I'm going to start putting ads in the Pacific Sun and Craigslist.
First of all, you're welcome, Jason and everybody else who's commented on my photos here. I'm glad to hear others are getting as much of a bang out of seeing them as I've been putting them up.
Now that you've advertised on Craigslist, You'll probably be hearing from some Nigerian students who'll want to move into your spare room and show you their photos.
Seriously, getting the kind of involvement you want depends mainly on two things: who has photos and who's interested. Unfortunately, both of these kinds of people are rather rare, and the combination more so.
As for who has them, my feeling is that most people only take pictures of each other, their kids, events and vacations. So unless little Susie was the baton-twirler in the July 4th Parade and her folks just happened to take her picture while she was twirling past Agner's Variety store in downtown Larkspur in 1955, they're not likely to have a picture of that establishment. Even if there is such a photo, it's probably mixed in with scores of others in a shoebox somebody got when their mother died and it's been sitting up in the attic forgotten for years if it hasn't been thrown away.
I have these photos first, because I got interested in photography about the same time my brother did back in the mid-50s and we both took pictures of things the average person wouldn't because we both liked taking pictures per se. Second, one of our family traits is never to throw anything away and another is to obsessively catalog things. A few years back I was struck with a case of (probably age-related) nostalgia, and I started cataloging our family photos. The rest is history. So there's the target audience for your inquiries: 60-year-old OCD ex-camera bugs with a desire to relive their past.
I heard about your site via word-of-mouth, the mouth in this case being my sister Rosemary, who I think learned of it through one of the genealogy lists, forums or sites she frequents.
So genealogy people are good targets - they have the basic interest in things gone by, and use photos in their researches. Also photography hobbyists and relatives/descendants of same. Maybe there are still photo clubs active in Marin, and current members who remember or know the older ones. Plus strike up relationships with the various historical societies around, see if the'd be willing to put a link to your site on their web pages or bully them into sharing their mailing lists. Barring the latter, maybe they'd mention it in any newsletters they might put out.
But yeah, I think everybody here should do the word-of-mouth thing, definitely.
