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.

In this film full of delicious looking food, our contributor Ashima turns one year old. She tells us more:

My 1st year birthday party (1969) in Albany Village which is student housing in Berkeley, CA. My father was working on his PhD at UC-Berkeley (Industrial Engineering).

This was a typical Indian gathering, outside and with lots of food. Mama made a lot of the Indian food, but she got the cake and sandwiches catered. There were probably 30+ people in attendance.

There is a man holding me whose name is Russ. He was friends with my Leo Uncle. Leo and Ruth were two individuals who became like my Papa and Mama’s second parents in the US. We always had Easter and Thanksgiving with them when we lived in CA.

Anyway, Mama is wearing a sari that Papa gave her as a wedding gift. She still owns it! The two older girls are Raman (who lives in Detroit now) and Sunaina (not sure where she is now). Then, the other two babies I’m sitting with her friends I used to play with a lot. Mama couldn’t remember their names. The blue outfit I am wearing was sent to my Mama by her Mama. Ruth Auntie and my mama found the tights at a dime store called Kresge.

Interestingly, the Kresge dime store was the forerunner to the modern Kmart. Here are some fantastic recordings of the in-store background music to truly put you back in the 1960s Kresge experience. Read more about the history of the Kresge and Kmart stores here. And the Kresge Foundation website is here.

Click “MPEG-2″ above for a high resolution version of this film and more from Ashima at the Internet Archive.

This week, a beautiful and tender movie of a mother clearly in love with her new baby. Submitted by Ashima here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the film features footage from California’s Bay Area in the late 1960s. A bit more detail from Ashima, who was the baby in the film:

Circa 1968 at Albany Village. Outside the apartment, the red car is what my parents used to drive. The red dress I am wearing my mama made. She used to make a lot of the clothes as long as the fabric cost less than $.25.

Next, outside on the lawn on the University campus. The pram was used for both Ashima and Shailesh [Ashima's brother, born later]. Sari was silk given by Mama’s mama when she got married. Building is near or around Berkeley campus. Hippie is some guy playing the guitar on Berkeley’s campus. My mama said that she didn’t think of him as a hippie, he was just a nice person playing pretty music. How sweet is that?! I love that shot! My mom in a sari and this dude playing guitar! Cultures come together peacefully!

Albany Village is now known as UC Village, a student housing complex just outside of the University of California at Berkeley campus. Ashima’s father was was then working on his Ph.D in Industrial Engineering.

Click the “MPEG-2″ link above for high-resolution footage of this lovely film from the Internet Archive.

Here in West Michigan, my student, Evan, brought me a box of wonderful footage of his family’s home movies, a number of which we’ll be featuring here. The first is the wedding of grandparents in the late 1940s, and includes images of Evan’s great-grandparents – one of those amazing events to have preserved on film.

Evan explains:

It’s the wedding of Ken and Jan Rattenbury (maiden name – Baxter)
The date is actually Sept. 18th, 1948 at St. Benedict’s in Chicago.
Behind the camera is Gardner Kreiser, the bride’s 2nd cousin.

Evan also shared the emails his grandparents sent with more details about the wedding (I love emails from grandparents):

Dear Evan, The pictures are Mine and your Grandmother’s Wedding on Sept 18, 1948. The pictures were made by Jan’s Uncle Gardner. The pictures are mostly the family. The two old ladies are your great-grandmothers. The lady with the pink flowered hat is my mother (Alice Rattenbury), and the car was our good friend Eddie Roger’s who took us away. Hope that is enough. Love grampa

Hi Evan: It’s your gramma. I just saw the movies and they are super. Haven’t watched any of them since your folks first sent the VCR’s. Terri Spies was my maid of honor, Uncle Bruce (Rattenbury) was Best Man (lady in red and the guy next to her in the second shot of her), my grandmother and Grampa’s grandmother were the oldest people in the movie. So many of our friends and relatives are gone!!! My dad (John Baxter) was the one with the sexy mustache, The church was St. Benedict’s down on the corner where we lived in Chicago.

Click the “MPEG-2″ link above for a high-resolution version of this film, provided by the Internet Archive.

I love this week’s film from the 1950s. A simple haircut produces tremendous drama. Our submitter, Susan S. of Louisiana, USA, sums it up best:

My Dad, Carter, is giving my brother, Stephen, his first haircut and I am sure that Mom is taking the pictures. Dad was always the one to give haircuts, bathe us, trim nails etc. I think he was way braver than mother would have been with those scissors! My brother never did like haircuts but Dad continued to be his barber until the ’60′s when he let his hair grow! I think it’s funny at the beginning of the film, that Dad thought Stephen was going to just sit in that chair with the towel around his neck and be cooperative!

Click the “MPEG-2″ link above for a high-resolution version of this film, available for download and re-use under a Creative Commons copyright license through the Internet Archive.

Our short hiatus ended up being a bit longer than anticipated, but Lost in Light is back in action. In this second year of the project, we are striving to present films in their original form as much possible, so we’ve decided to present silent films as silent, without our editorial addition of music, and with minimal editing on our part. We return with this wonderful film from the early 1950s U.S. Gulf Coast.Susan S., one of the children in the film, provides this background:

My parents were living around the Gulf Coast area-Galveston, Texas City, Sabine. I think that the sawfish is on the beach in Galveston. I remember my Dad telling us about the things that the fishing boats would drag up that was caught in their nets. Anytime it was something big , a crowd would be gathered around taking pictures. Once it was a huge whale that had beached itself. I am the topless brunette so it’s about 1951. Mother is the beauty getting into the car. About New Orleans, Mother doesn’t remember but I think there are some things in the film that you can’t see in New Orleans anymore – will need to do a little research!

If you have observations about parts of New Orleans depicted in this film that don’t exist anymore, please leave them in the comments. Certainly the city has changed overwhelmingly since this film was taken – makes me appreciate films like this all the more.

Interestingly, sawfish are now an endangered species and international trade is banned.

As always, a complete, high-resolution version of this film is available for download at the Internet Archive. Click “MPEG-2″ above for the link.

Things I love about Old Christmas’: Ashtrays, metal toys, stockings for Porky, miniature bowling alleys, blinding light, ice in tumblers, gravy boats, modeling for moms, Cookie Monster slippers, babies trapped in rolling apparatus, aunts, AM radios, weapons, little bakers, mesmerizing toy packaging, cat tails, typewriters, ez bake ovens, kids buried in wrapping paper, 6-packs, 60 lb. radio controllers, floral house coats, moms who like everything, and easy to please grandpas.

Music: “Blue Christmas” by Jack, Tanner, and Anja. More songs here. Check out Anja’s website which is chock full of her beautiful original artwork, vintage clothes, found photos, and fun blogs.

This footage is from the Fort Worth Zoo back in 1979. There used to be ‘rides’ at the zoo, and some of my earliest memories are of spending time out there… I know I must have been taken there quite often….

… my mom had that camera and took lots of pictures back then.. she must have been about 21 years old during this video… the guy in the clip was her boyfriend of the time, “Ronnie.” That’s us at his house in the end… his sister and mom and little dog are there too… I remember them being really nice, and loving that little white dog a lot… they took me to the Shrine Circus too once, Ronnie’s whole family did…

… the sad thing about that video was my understanding of Ronnie. My mom and him split and went their separate ways not long after this video was taken. I remember always thinking that Ronnie was my biological father, and I had these vague memories from before and around age three… Even though I was so young, I remember feeling he was great to me, taking me to the duckpond with loaves of bread, buying me the Snoopy Snow-Cone Machine, letting me sit on the back of his motorcycle with his blue helmet on… I just remember being happy around him. Only when I was maybe 11 or 12 after he’d been gone for 8 years did someone tell me that Ronnie wasn’t my real dad after all…

This film and more from Joshua’s films are available as high-resolution download at the Internet Archive. See our File Directory for links from this entry and others.

Contributor Diane Dobronte from California adds some detail:

Part of the Dobronte Family at the Sugar Cane Fields on Oahu, Hawaii in the early 1950′s…

My father, Dr. Frank Dobronte, shot this when we were invited to the factory to watch the process and tour. We lived in Hawaii from about 1951 – early 1955.

I don’t know if they still burn the fields now but the whole process started by a dramatic controlled burning of the fields prior to harvest. Then the cane was collected, washed and squeezed by heavy presses to extract the sugar cane juice – the juice went through a series of dryings… they gave us little cotton bags about 4in x 4in of the pure raw cane sugar. it was so delicious… I can still taste it. Not like the white sugar we are used to.

My Dad is filming and I’m with my Mom in the clip – don’t know where my other sisters are but there are 4 of us, and then 5 when my brother was born – in fact my Mom is probably pregnant in this film. In the clip is my Mom, Mary Dobronte, and myself, Diane. Great memory and I can still smell the wonderful sweet smell of the whole experience………..so glad to have found this!

As always, see our File Directory for a link to twenty five minutes of high quality footage of the Dobrontes’ experiences in Hawaii, available at the Internet Archive.