05 May 2012

A Box of Photographs

Many years ago I received a huge, heavy box from a friend at Christmas. Inside was a collection of hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of photographs, all but a few black and white, each lovingly captioned on the back with date and location, chronicling a family's life from the 1930s through the early 1970s. Every moment was photographed. The illustrated story of an American midwestern military family. Accidental multiple exposures, blurry photographs, and poorly exposed images were kept and indexed just as carefully as those that were well composed. I couldn't believe my eyes.

It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway...
I was -- and still am -- completely overwhelmed by this collection of photos. It's incredibly moving to flip through the stacks and stacks of images in the box. Over the years I've looked through them, sorted them, and then sorted them again. I've kept them safe. It had been quite a long time since I had looked through them, but something sparked the need to recently. It had been so long, it was like seeing them for the first time again.


"The Alamo, San Antonio  Feb 1952"
"Looking east on Santa Cruz St., Ventura, Calif"

"At Canton (illegible), Aug 31, 1952"

"Wash. D.C., June 1961, Washington Monument"

"Jan. 1951"


This is the first time I've shared any of the photographs. Maybe I'll share some more, I don't know. All I know is that I wanted to now.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have lots of photos like this also. So many it's hard for me to really sort and decide what to keep and what to discard. So far, I've kept them all. Many of our my family from the early 1900s to the 1980s. You have a wonderful treasure.

Monika Seitz Vega said...

Thanks, Marta!