Seeking backdrop photos

[jbvb]

Having spent a while looking around the internet for suitable backdrop photos, I find that existing indices are not very helpful unless you're looking for a fairly famous landmark or photos of a popular vacation area.  Pay or free, panoramic views of urban or suburban scenes shot in the 20th century aren't what stock agencies or libraries seem to have much demand for.  I chose this title thinking that others may have similar quests.

What I want is "Boston Inner Suburb" in color, ideally taken from a rooftop or a low hill sometime between 1950 and 1980 (e.g. pre vinyl and aluminum siding). Three-deckers, commercial buildings, 2-family residential areas are all OK - I need about 30 linear feet with foreground buildings printed 4-6" high. Recognizable scenic features or conspicuous post-1960 vehicles may have to be edited out.  Can be moderate resolution.  I can do my own cut & splice with GIMP.

Does anyone have or know where to find a few pre-1980 slides of Lynn, MA taken from up in the Lynn Woods, or Malden looking down from the Fells?  I could make it work with the right pictures from another Boston inner suburb, or residential parts of Boston itself.  Photos of Toronto or Baltimore probably won't look right to me.

[bparrish]

James...

Interesting predicament.   Try this for a part of a solution.  Kinko - Fed ex has printers that are really more of a plotter.  If you can find a suitable photo they can blow it up and print it on large continuous sheets .  Then you can mount it on foam board with spray contact cement....... 3M -77.......... and it will flex of desired in a corner or stay flat if that works.  The printing is sort of expensive as it is priced out by the foot in color.  But that is cheaper than retaining an artist.

Three suggestions for source photos.......... on line National Archives............ Flicker ...................... or local chamber of commerce.

see ya
Bob