Discovering my father’s wartime photo

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Discovering my father’s wartime photo

I can’t even begin to describe the feelings I had when I discovered an envelope filled with negatives of photographs my father took during his time in Burma in World War II. This envelope contained several medium-format and 35mm negatives he took while serving in the 14th Army, Royal Armoured Corps, which was a tank corps of the British Army.

Years ago, I discovered a box full of hundreds of negatives he had taken after the war when he emigrated to the USA and travelled around and photographed post-war America. I’ve gone through them a few times and scanned a number of them, but I was astonished to realize I had somehow missed this particular envelope containing these special photographs from his time in the war.

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…scanned from my archive. My grandmother Fanny

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…scanned from my archive. My grandmother Fanny

My grandmother Fanny was one of the sweetest and kindest people I ever knew, almost to a fault. She lived for her family and friends and would literally do anything to help or support them, but as a result I always wondered about her own happiness.

She raised my mother and her brother Jerry, and helped my grandfather Boris run his photo studio on the boardwalk, just downstairs from their ocean view apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. I of course have dozens of photos my grandfather took of her, posing almost demurely for the camera in his studio, on the boardwalk, the beach or their roof (otherwise known as tar beach). These two photos were mixed in amongst them all, but stood out because they were not the typical poses or expressions I see in most of the other photos of her.

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…scanned from my archive. My mom’s 97th birthday

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…scanned from my archive. My mom’s 97th birthday

…scanned from my archive. My mom’s 97th birthday

Yikes! Today my mom turned 97 today. In honor of this event I pulled out a few of my favorites and a few I’ve not shared before.

I literally have hundreds of photos of my mother growing up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. As I’ve mentioned many times, my grandfather had a photo studio right on the boardwalk near Brighton 4th Street. In our family, growing up in front of the camera was a big part of our lives. My mother, her brother Jerry, myself and my cousins Michael and Leslee all spent part of our formative years posing in the studio for my grandfather.

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…scanned from my archive. Tim and Nico go out Midwest – 1974

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…scanned from my archive. Tim and Nico go out Midwest – 1974

In 1974 my brothers Tim and Nico took a trip out the Midwest to visit their grandparents. My stepmother Susan was originally from Minnesota but her parents had relocated to Missouri and so the family took off for the heartland. Along the way they stopped for a visit to Mount Rushmore.

I love this shot that my father took. The quintessential snapshot would have typically had my brothers facing the camera, framed from head to toe (because we all know how important it is to include footwear in meaningful family portraits), with the four presidents shrunk to minuscule versions of…

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…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958

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…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958. While growing up, there were always certain photos that seemed to be present, either in frames on the wall, taped to cabinets, stuck to the fridge or in one of the several photo albums lying around. My father and my mother’s father Boris, were usually the photographers of most of the family photos, so they aren’t present in as many of the family photos as other family members. Boris was a professional photographer, so like myself, he was usually much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.

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