This site is no longer being updated. You’ll notice links to old videos hosted on the now defunct Blip.tv no longer display. Full versions of our small gauge home movie transfers, if available, can be found on the Internet Archive. Click the “MPEG-2” link to be taken to its Internet Archive page.

Sadly, this is the final post here on Lost in Light. We extend great thanks to all of our contributors and supporters as we draw this project to a close. The site will remain live and searchable as an archive of all the great home movies and creative projects that have been offered here.

With this last film, we present another gem from the great collector of film ephemera, Nolan Pelletier. He includes with this film some amazing slides collected from the same estate sale that offered up this eclectic home movie:

This film came from the Estate of this man. He was definitely a hunter. Half the slides I found were of his latest blood covered hunting kills or his hunting buddies. Mixed in with the rest of the slides was this picture. One of these things is not like the other.

I highly recommend browsing Nolan’s Flickr stream, the owls go, which includes wonderful still images as well as selections of the hours of home movies we transferred from his collection, which make fantastic use of Flickr’s video feature.

Please also visit our friends in small-gauge filmmaking, OnSuper8 and, of course, Home Movie Day (Oct. 18, 2008!), which also includes a comprehensive list of small-gauge film transfer resources.

Adieu!

Nolan Pelletier of Connecticut, USA, has one of my favorite streams on Flickr, the owls go. It’s a collection of found photos and slides picked up at estate and garage sales – odd, poignant, charming, and adorable images of strangers from eras past.

Here, Nolan offers a few home movies his picked up in his collecting travels. Because they’re found films, details can often be hard to come by, but Nolan offers a description of this particular gem:

This film is from the estate of a family who lived only 2 or 3 minutes from my house. It’s very odd to see the neighborhood they lived in 50 years ago. From what I can gather, this film was taken by the mother. She worked for the American School for the Deaf, and these were taken there. There are several reels of footage of all the children gathered for different occasions. They were all taken in the mid to late 1960s. I would love to know where these kids are today. They’re all pretty adorable.

The American School for the Deaf was founded in 1817 and is based in West Hartford, Connecticut. Students there also made this quite interesting website, Deaf is….

This post is among the last new entries Lost in Light will be making, as we prepare to retire the project. It’s been a wonderful year and a half, but our lives beckon us toward other projects. The site will remain up and complete as an archive of all these wonderful films we have collected. thanks to everyone who has participated in this labor of love.

This week, some great shots of huge turtles, a snoozing alligator, Mt. Rushmore, and vistas of the Grand Canyon. All from our contributor Ashima, who adds this:

My mama had a hard time remembering the year, but she thinks it is 1977. I do clearly remembering waking up that alligator in my little brown suit. I didn’t want to get mud on it! We took this trip from Chicago to California and these were some stops along the way. I think the trading post at the end of the video is the Hubbell Trading Post, a national historic site. Honestly, I have no idea where the turtle and alligator were located. I asked my mama and she cannot remember either. BUT, doesn’t that guy look like Steve Irwin only skinnier? I doubt it was him…

The Hubbell Trading Post is the oldest operating trading post in the Navajo Nation of the U.S., located in Northeastern Arizona.

For high-resolution footage of this film and more, click the “MPEG-2” link above to access the Internet Archive.

More from Ashima’s collection of home movies this week. Here, we feature a visit to India in 1969, with lush, detailed images of the spectacular architecture there. Ashima offers a little more detail on the locations:

This must have been 1969 and taken at two places, Red Fort in Delhi and Jama Masjid. The snake charmer was at Red Fort. This must have been just before we left for Europe.

The Red Fort is a tremendous fortress palace and Jama Masjid a historic mosque, both constructed by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the mid-1600s. See a satellite view of the Red Fort here and Jama Masjid here.

Click the “MPEG-2” link above for high-resolution footage of this gorgeous film and more at the Internet Archive.