From hundreds of vintage and antique photographs collected over the years from estate and yard sales, I’ve selected several dozen informal snapshots.
The subjects are mostly unidentifiable: Family members lost to memory, their photographic record discarded, now salvaged and saved from destruction for having special qualities that give them value beyond their previous role as images of family and friends and places visited:
Eerie, odd, bordering on the surreal, evoking the quality of a still from a David Lynch movie.
Engaging in coloration and/or composition
Evocative of a distant time and place.
“Mistakes” in focus or composition that create unintended visual poetry.
Aside from the subject matter, the physical quality and shape of the photos reflect the style and the limitations of the photo processes of the time: Sepia, neutral gray, color vs. achromatic, horizontal, vertical, square, faux deckle-edge vs. strait edge, glossy vs. mat.
In almost all of these, I’ve left a small space between the mat board and the photo edge to draw attention to the photo as an artifact, an object-in-itself. Abrasions, accretions, and small tears that may have accumulated over the years, are all a part of the photograph’s “life story.”
Today we experience a glut of informal digital images of guaranteed razor sharpness and brilliant color through smart phone technology, created in the millions every minute, living a virtual existence in our phones or somewhere in “the cloud.” By contrast, the snapshots presented here were created at a time when clicking the shutter button, sending the film out and, days later, receiving the prints, was a special and much anticipated event. Unique mementos to be treasured, at least for a while. Many came out well, some did not but were saved, fortunately and for whatever reason. Isolated and shedding previous connections, they are now visual records from the past, asking for a new narrative to be created by the viewer. Peculiar evidence from a very different time.
(Each photo or set is followed by its matted version. Writing or other information on the back is shown in quotations in the captions.
Prices available on request.
