In our image filled world, I think photography is something we take for granted. At any given time, all of us have a camera in our possession (at least we do if we have a cell phone on us). We are used to taking pictures whenever we want, so we forget that photographs were, at one time, much more rare. Why have I been thinking about this lately? Because of a book series I’ve been reading. A guilty pleasure of mine is young adult fiction (as a mid-twenty year old) lately I’ve been reading “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”. This series of books jumped on the Harry Potter bandwagon as another fantasy/adventure story about a group of children with peculiar powers. They are actually pretty awesome, but what makes them unique- and a bit relevant to being a photographer- is the use of old photographs to propel the story.
The author Ransom Riggs has collected an assortment of photographs (many with early darkroom and film tricks applied to them) to illustrate the novels. He uses these images to inspire the descriptions of his characters and the places they are visiting.
Before reading these books, I had started a collection of my own found photographs. My collection started with some old family photographs I found at my grandparent’s house then progressed to images I found in antique store bins. I was intrigued by some of the seemingly insignificant shots, because I had a feeling that while they looked unimportant to me, that they meant a great deal to someone at one time. There are weird little trends I started seeing, for instance, people photographing themselves in front of bushes and trees.
I love that these are three different families and they all chose to take essentially the same photograph. Another thing I find interesting about found photographs are the little notes written on the back.
“Isn’t this one a scream?” is on the back of this oddly composed image. It leads to so many questions. Why was it composed like that? What was so funny about that day or situation? The last thing I enjoy about old photographs, is seeing the shadow of the photographer in the image. In some ways it is a little eerie, but in other ways it’s a reminder there is someone else part of the moment we are seeing, not just the people being photographed.
Overall, it’s nice to look back on the treasured snapshots and take a moment to think about what we chose to photograph day to day. We are so accustomed to seeing images we take immediately while being able to photograph whenever we want, that we can forget it wasn’t always that way. Maybe we can work a bit more on leaving some physical images behind for generations to come?
there was a great photo series that i saw in arles where the theme was a shadow of a man taking the photo. it felt ominous because you wonder who is this guy that is in such random places!