Adding time and place to photos

John Mays with Baby Steve. Probably spring (leaves on trees). 638 Cynthia St., Poplar Bluff MO

The only way this could have been better is if mom had included the date. I was born on March 8, 1948, so this is probably early spring? But having the address of where they were living (in Poplar Bluff, MO) is priceless. I checked street view on the maps apps but that was almost 80 years ago.

I have so many photos from this time I tend to take them for granted. To see the loving expressions of my mother and father… whew.

D-Day plus one

Don Mays in his Navy uniform on June 7, 1944

I’ve seen these photos hundreds of times but never spotted the significance of the date. June 7, 1944. The day after the D-Day invasion of Normandy in WWII. Other war news from that date:

  • German submarine U-629 was sunk in the English Channel by Allied aircraft.
  • The USS Susan B. Anthony struck a mine and sank, though all 2,689 aboard were saved.
  • Japanese destroyer Hayanami was torpedoed and sunk by the USS Harder

The simple addition of the date adds so much to the photos.

Before digital photos

The photo below is one of hundreds I hauled down from the attic after my parents died. No idea who Mrs. Schluleter was but mom would have been living in St. Louis in November of of 1944. I get chills thinking about what mom’s hand-written metadata adds to this photo. (see ChatGPT info below) Allied forces had invaded Normandy just five months earlier and the outcome of the war was still far from certain. My father enlisted in the Navy in May of 1943 and was discharged in March of 1946 and saw a lot of action (which he never talked about) in the Pacific.

Some might argue that today’s digital images are rich in data but most people I know simply shovel hundreds (thousands?) of digital images into the cloud with little or no context.

On November 5, 1944, the world was deep into World War II, and several significant events took place:

  • Allied Advances in Europe: Canadian and British forces liberated Dinteloord in the Netherlands. Allied troops also reached Zoutelande on Walcheren Island, continuing their push to secure key positions in Western Europe.
  • Pacific Theater Operations: U.S. Task Force 38, under Admiral McCain, launched strategic military operations targeting Japanese positions on Luzon and surrounding areas. During these operations, the aircraft carrier USS Lexington was heavily damaged by a kamikaze attack.
  • Bombing of Singapore: U.S. Army Air Forces’ Twentieth Air Force B-29s, based in Calcutta, India, began occasional attacks on drydock and ship repair facilities in Singapore.

These events highlight the intense and widespread military engagements occurring across multiple theaters of the war at that time.

Image Playground

Apple has issued updates to the iPhone (18.2) and the MacOS (15.2). It’s going to take me six months to explore all of the new features but the Image Playground app seemed like a good place to start. This video provides a good introduction. The app enables non-artists (like me) to create images. You can just describe an image and then tweak until you get what you saw in your head… or you can upload a photo and let the app use that as a starting point. Watch the video above if you’re curious. Below are some early efforts: Steve, David Brazeal, couple of Golden Retrievers, John Robison and Allen Hammock.