Somewhere in France?

I found a box of old negatives of pictures taken in Europe ... We were stationed in Germany from late 1986 until late 1989 ...

I have been converting the negatives to digital, and find that I sincerely wish I had labeled all of these negatives! I think this picture was taken on a trip to France, mostly because of the "sign" that reads "creche du soleil". If anyone recognizes where this was taken, please leave a comment - I would be overjoyed!

If you are wondering just HOW I am converting these negatives, check out my post HERE.
I've been having so much fun with this - and it's FREE (not to mention EASY)!

To see signs from around the world, visit Lesley's "Signs, Signs"!

A Negative Experiment ...

So ... how many of us have negatives ...
I know I have a whole file folder full!
I've always wanted to have them developed, to replace so many of my pictures that were ruined when the roof leaked ...
The process is something I've had to put on hold, due to lack of funding for this project.

Then I had an inspiration!!!

I cut down an old soda box, cut a small square hole in the front, and taped on a small piece of cardboard to each side of the hole to hold the negative in place.

The negative slipped right in!
I set the gizmo in front of a lamp, but the lighting was too strong.
So I diffused the light with a piece of white paper taped to another box behind ...
I propped my camera up on a pile of books, set it on "Macro" about an inch from the negative, focused my camera ...
"Click"!

And took a picture of the negative!
(Sorry about the cat hairs, this is a re-take of the shot - the original didn't have the hairs).

I used "Gimp" (colors/invert) to make the negative a positive ...

Then played with the colors and levels.
It's not the best, but I will keep trying!

In the meantime, this is a photo of my mom, my brother and his wife ... that I haven't seen in years - and probably would never have seen again!