Rural America 1939-1943

[PipenSnus]

I don't know if things were truly simpler then, but people did know how to enjoy life without the need of many material things. Sometimes I wonder how many modern folk would be able to survive in such conditions. Our attachment to technology has made us soft and weak, and we've more or less lost any connection to the natural world.

Incredible photos, lxskllr, thanks very much for sharing them.

[Darwin]

The Natural World. Nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. Beautiful vistas and grand landscapes may gladden the heart and fill the soul with peace but--also entirely natural are--earthquakes, fires, lightning, tornados, volcanos, droughts, floods, landslides, avalanches, fog, snowstorms, sandstorms, snowstorms, hailstorms, mosquitos, leeches, spiders, scorpions, thorns, nettles, legions of poisonous plants, more legions of poisonous insects, poisonous snakes, mammal and reptile predators endless in number, starvation, killing cold and searing heat, massive thirst one day and drowning danger the next, and last but hardly least, lethal disease pathogens without end, amen. Although we are of course sustained by nature that same agency seems to have been doing its dead level best to kill us for millions of years. Takes very little nature to kill you stone dead. Visit it, appreciate it, then retreat to your comfortably heated and/or cooled habitation module which is the end result of thousands of years of human effort to keep as much of the natural world at bay as possible.

[PipenSnus]

And yet with all our security measures and comforts, we can't escape humankind's greatest natural predator -- each other.

[lxskllr]

I'm pretty cool with nature. I could live fairly well with minimal possessions.

[daruckis]

i think its cool to see such good quality color photos of the era, where usually what you see is black and white or really worn photographs that make the era seem much more surreal. these just make it look... real.

[Darwin]

These photos were likely shot on the early version of Kodachrome which in addition to its extremely fine grain and enhanced color reproduction possessed a great resistance to fading and deterioration which explains why some of these pics can be seem so wonderfully real. The manufacture and processing of the film was tortuous though and quite expensive which limited its use for quite a few years. It's sadly out of production now, most consumer film manufacturing is fading away for obvious reasons, and that should be considered a great loss. And not only is it the only photographic film that ever had a song written about it but additionally a colorfully gorgeous area of southwestern Utah is named Kodachrome Basin.

[dreed2]

Wow. Thanks for sharing that!