Behind the Digital LensMusings of an Amateur Photographer

30th Jun, 2016 Who Are Those People?

After my parents died, I was left with a number of photo albums.  Some of the people and places I recognized, but most I didn’t.  We’re not talking photo albums from the last 40 years.  We’re talking [now] about photo albums – and miscellaneous loose photos – from the last 100 years or so.  You know, those black covered books with the flimsy black paper pages and the black – or white – corners that held the photos to the pages.  The kind of albums you might see in museums, or that your great-grandparents had.  Well, three out of four of my grandparents were born in the 1880-1890 range so a good deal of these photos were taken between 1900-1940, 1950 or so.  Yeah, we’re talking OLD photo albums.

So, every now and then I sit down with these old photos and stare at them like I am just seeing them for the first time and wishing that the people in them could magically tell me their name and their age at the time the photo was taken.  I have gently removed a few of them to see if there was anything printed on the back in pencil, but no, nothing there.  Why oh why?  I do have a photo of a woman I assume is my great-grandmother with a pencil written caption of “Suk, guess who?”.  WHO???  Caption-writer, who are YOU?

And then, there are those photos with only first names on them.  Okay, some of these people I kind of know from my genealogy research, but most I don’t.  Were they friends?  Relatives?  When were these mysterious black and white photos of people and places taken?  It is frustrating to know that I have hundreds of these photos to pass along to family and can only wish them luck.  Other than what could have been valuable family history to pass along, they now have become something that will probably just be tossed away at some point, ending their history.

So, here we are in 2016, a century in the future from when most of these photos were taken.  We are in the age of digital cameras and digital media.  We go crazy posting photos online in places like Facebook, Instagram, and send them through email to family with cute little captions.  Pictures of the new baby, cat, dog, house, boat, vacation, friends, co-workers, sunsets and sunrises, fun at the beach, at the fair, restaurants, etc.  We think they’ll be cached for future and posterity, but how long is that?  Digital doesn’t mean permanent.  Any more, nothing is permanent.  Especially photography; digital photography to be exact.

I print photos, those that I like a lot.  Mostly of places, not of people.  I am guilty of not captioning or labeling them.  So, MY questions to myself sometimes are, where was this taken, and when?

So, in fifty years or so, when you might be dead and gone and digital media are left – and maybe even not playable/viewable – will your memories be lost to those who find and see them, or forever?  Or will they ask, “Who ARE those people?  When and where were these taken?”  Or even, “Can anything on this be recovered?”  While we might not want to admit it, a printed photo with a label can be invaluable to those generations after us.

[FWIW, and just as an aside, I own one tintype of some unknown man, and a glass plate with an image of my sister.]