This past Thanksgiving, Brooklyn-based photographer Navid Baraty attended and photographed the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. However, he didn’t shoot the festivities in the way that most people do (from the ground). Instead, he went high overhead to the roof of a tall building to capture everything from a birds-eye-view.
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Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and even people who don’t ordinary take pictures are likely dusting off their cameras in anticipation of capturing snapshots of family gatherings. Photography wasn’t as cheap back in 1926, so people needed a little more encouraging. The above ad placed by the Master Photo Finishers of America tries to do this is a slightly morbid way:

Save the day with snap shots. Thanksgiving, the day of the year which brings most families together, is a splendid opportunity to take snap-shots of the entire family, both singly and as a group. Next year may be too late. Have your camera and a few extra film ready.

Interesting marketing tactic, eh? Here’s Boing Boing’s paraphrase: “Take Thanksgiving snapshots, before everyone you love dies.” The ad was discovered by Flickr user Alan Mays, who regularly posts scans of quirky vintage finds.

Here’s some interesting color footage showing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1939. Tom Pappalardo stumbled upon it after buying some 8mm film from a junk shop. He writes,

I bought this reel at a junk shop in Northampton, Massachusetts (I think?) about a decade ago. It sat unwatched in a box of other random Super 8/8mm reels for quite awhile, until I decided I wanted to capture some of my family’s own home movies. Since I had the projector set up, I ended up sifting through all my other ‘mystery’ reels, and this was one of them.

Hopefully memory cards also last 72 years for people of the future to discover in the same way… Hope you guys are having a good Thanksgiving!

(via Laughing Squid)