the faded colors, the rounded corners, the symmetrical shapes that have captured in time so many moments from so long ago.
i recently spent time with some of my very favorite people and ended up discovering a drawer chocked full of these moments. photographs. creased, bent, faded, preserved, folded, saved over decades and decades of family history.
maybe the effect old photographs have on me is in part due to the fact that i’m a photographer. or maybe it’s the other way around… but regardless, there’s nothing that can get the water works going for me faster than looking at old photos.
i don’t even mean just my own family photos. i recently spent an evening looking at a dear friends old family photos and i was literally shedding tears over them (this also included touching the actual negatives from find the girls on the negatives which also gave me chills). but it’s not just limited to close friends family photos either. it includes forgotten photos of strangers collected by friends too.
i don’t know what it is, but give me a handful of images circa the 90’s or earlier and you’re going to have to hand me a few tissues as well.
there’s just something so special about old photographs.
they’re an archive.
they’re pieces of me.