Today I read an article in the NY Times about a US Marine who handed two family photo albums to his Vietnam buddy. Forty years later, his widow is trying to return those albums to their family. To me, family history is one of the most interesting aspects of photography, and wedding photography in particular. I remember reading in Diane Arbus’ biography that she was sort of obsessed with her personal family photographs. I can relate to that.
One of Peter and my favorite things to do is to shop at thrift stores and flea markets. It’s amazing how often I’ll find old wedding and family photos at these places. If you search eBay for “vintage wedding photos” or “vintage photos” you’ll get tons of hits. I think it’s sad that these photos don’t know their families — or vice versa.
Sometimes I think about how my love of family documents and old photographs is part of why I love photographing weddings. My family photos are one of my dearest treasures, and I hope that the wedding photos I take for clients become part of their family treasures too.
A few years ago I scanned over 1,000 of my family’s photographs, slides, negatives, and postcards and I thought I would share a few here. The first one is a postcard photo of my Uncle John (pictured center on left) just before he went off to WWI. The back of the card reads: “I don’t know where I’m going, but I am on my way.” Luckily he did return from the war and lived a long life. The man in the oval portrait — Uncle Thomas — wasn’t so lucky and never returned from WWI. He would write postcards to his sister (my great-grandmother), that were addressed: “Little Girl.” She’s in a few of these photos too. I love the one of her and her friend with their giant bouffant hair-dos.
Fortunately I know the people and stories behind most of these photos. Many of the WWII photos are of my grandparents, and the tintype photo is an uncle on my father’s side. The woman dressed as a gypsy for Halloween is my Aunt Myra, who I got to meet and know when she was older. Since we’ve lost some of the context, a few of the photos are just plain strange and I have no idea why they were taken. Although sometimes those are the ones I find most interesting: a photo of a child’s empty bedroom, a female torso standing next to a dying poinsettia plant, a television in a dark room.
I’ll leave it to you to figure out which of these photos includes me.
The bottom pic is my aunt and uncle’s back yard. Did I mention that they live in a crazy-cool geodesic dome?
