Richardsfault.com -> Nostalgia -> Rochester81
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A nostalgic trip back to my Junior and Senior years at the University of Rochester. Most images are from 1979 to 1981, an intense and too-brief period in which I went from being an unattached undergraduate to a newly-married engineer in Port Arthur, Texas. Many more images will be added over the coming months. Each category below links to a thumbnail page which in turn launches full-sized images. Images that are relevant to more than one category will appear in each. As well as my 35mm images, text and pictures from Campus Times, Logos, and Interpres yearbooks are to be found. As the project evolves, these sources are yielding a wealth of great material. I am very interested in adding visual or audio contributions that others may have. E-mail richard@richardsfault.com.
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 Sigma Chi Derby Day 1979 & 1980 |
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Concerts |
 Halloween 1979 |
Recreation
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 Mischief |
Events and fund-raising |
Scenery |
Welcome Class of 1981 |
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 Campus Times |
 Logos |
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| 35mm SLR photography was very
popular in my college days. Many Nikon, Minolta, Canon, and Pentax cameras could
be seen hanging around the necks of fellow students and myself, especially at
the many "photo ops" campus life offered. I also believe that the local
influence of Kodak made Rochester a photogenic city.
Most images on this site were taken with my Minolta XG-7 that I purchased in 1979, using lenses ranging from 28 mm wide-angle to 400 mm telephoto. Slide, color print, and B&W film were used more or less equally. Most of the B&W images are the result of a senior-year photography class and were self-developed. Many had never been printed before. Lower-quality, square images were taken with an Instamatic 126 film camera that was occasionally used in my Freshman and Sophomore years. After graduation, these slides and negatives ended up in airtight boxes and were largely forgotten, except for prints in photo albums. That all changed with the acquisition of an HP Scanjet 3970 for around $100. I was amazed at the results it can produce. In the near future, I will be upgrading to a dedicated film scanner, and posting superior replacements for many of these images. I would imagine that on campus today, the 35mm SLR has largely been replaced with the lower-cost (2 to 4 MP) digital cameras and picture phones. These simpler cameras cannot capture the nuances that 35mm can. In features and performance, they are the equivalent of the Instamatic film cameras that many of us 35mm lovers cut our teeth on. In addition, the resolution of 35mm film can be equivalent to as much as 18 mega pixels. Of course, the $1000+ DSLR's and some of the better 5+ MP cameras are rapidly closing in. If you are as fortunate as myself to have 35mm images of friends, partners, and favorite scenery, I highly suggest you start scanning them. Be prepared to experience a flood of emotions as the old days become alive again in JPG format. Feedback from today's students has indicated that college is not as it once was. I am glad to know that I have gotten that point across, and understand that it is an important reason for this page. Don't let political correctness, lawyers, and corporations spoil the fun. We didn't! Shared content and reciprocal links: Whenever I have reason to believe that a particular image or sound may be of interest to someone, I seek them out and make them aware of the item: The David Bromberg radio ad is featured on the David Bromberg site, which actively seeks images and sounds for their archives. If anyone photographed his 1979 UR concert, they would love to hear from you. The Rochester Telephone "They'll never catch you" ad is featured on the Phone Trips site. It is a "hidden treat" revealed by clicking on the title image.
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