Man, some of those pictures are begging for lolcat captions. Also, I love how in the 60's pictures, everyone is so well dressed, even in the casual pics. They're more dressed up to play catch in the back yard than I get when I'm grabbing a bite at a restaurant.
That said; I wish I knew how to develop film. I have some old black and white rolls in my office somewhere that may be older than I am, and no place I've tried can/will develop them. posted by dejah420 at 11:53 AM on February 26, 2009
These are really lost treasures. The ironic thing is that pictures like these of unidentifiable people will probably be better preserved - or at least better digitally preserved - than pictures collected in shoeboxes in our grandparents attics. These could very well become among the most common historical records of how people lived in the 60's and 70's. posted by Joey Michaels at 11:57 AM on February 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
what was the site that was like this? i remember seeing it maybe 10 years ago, and it had a bunch of found photos and you could submit comments/captions. there was a photo of two guys who were somehow sharing or trading a stripey pyjama outfit? it was really awesome. this site is good, too, but the comments i think take away from the photos. posted by snofoam at 12:17 PM on February 26, 2009
i answered my own question: it was spillway, which was posted to memepool.com on june 9, 2001. you know, back when you could see this photo and the thought of terrorism would not even cross your mind. posted by snofoam at 12:26 PM on February 26, 2009
This photo is fantastic. I wonder whether the victim was a hooker or a hobo? posted by owtytrof at 12:31 PM on February 26, 2009
Love it.
I agree with snofoam, though -- the commentary really takes away from the photos. The beauty of found images is that you can look at them for yourself and either try to figure out what the meaning of the photo was for the person who took it, or arbitrarily assign one yourself, letting the photo basically act as a blank canvas. When somebody's already gone and written a faux caption, you don't get to do that. posted by Kadin2048 at 12:32 PM on February 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
Wow, I hadn't even noticed the side captions. I'm going to go back to ignoring them. posted by dejah420 at 12:53 PM on February 26, 2009
Yeah, the comments appear to be a way to attach a Something Awful/MST3K kind of snarky vibe to something that's not suited to it.
I dunno, I think undeveloped rolls of film are kind of tragic. Someone once took those pictures for a reason, but due to one thing or another, either lost track of them or didn't want to have them rendered to photo paper.
They represent memories either neglected or abandoned. I find both these things profoundly sad, especially when people usually take pictures to remember happy times. posted by JHarris at 1:04 PM on February 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
I know one reason why everyone looks so well dressed is that no one ever took pictures of anything other than holidays or big events. It probably had to do with the cost and the bother of getting them developed but I never saw a camera come out of the drawer unless company was over.
Then my mom got a job with the big photo lab in town and I could get B&W done for free and a big discount on color. I started taking pictures with my Instamatic like crazy. I've got a lot of old negatives and slides of just random stuff (like clouds).
Today I can shoot more digital pictures in an hour than I ever took with film cameras. posted by tommasz at 1:59 PM on February 26, 2009
I believe that I can say with some confidence that that guy looks more like a chicken than anyone else on earth. posted by mudpuppie at 3:42 PM on February 26, 2009
I think they're remarkable compelling. Moments in other peoples' lives, without knowing all their problems. posted by Salvor Hardin at 6:21 PM on February 26, 2009
Salvor Hardin: Moments in other peoples' lives, without knowing all their problems.
Not only that, but the odds are that the problems that were so pressing to them when these photos were taken are, almost to a person, mostly irrelevant to their lives now.
And then there's the whole thing about the lost stories behind why it seemed so important to take the picture at the time, but not important to ever develop the picture. Did the photographer die? The subject in the photo? Did they lose the roll of film or just set it aside, eventually forgetting what was on it?
Lost photos, regardless of their subject matter, inevitably make me profoundly sad, but I can't stop looking at them.
Unfortunately for the rest of you, they also put me in a "Philosophy 101" frame of mind. posted by Joey Michaels at 6:35 PM on February 26, 2009
Wonderful, thanks! posted by mediareport at 8:18 PM on February 26, 2009
I love these... and so many of them seem as though they could have come from my own family's history. It would be really cool to see the same sort of thing from foreign countries. posted by taz at 7:07 AM on February 27, 2009
... well, this one looks potentially non-North American. Also, again with the bear. I think I know why this roll wasn't developed. posted by taz at 7:12 AM on February 27, 2009
What really strikes me in the pictures is how much thinner Americans used to be. posted by 6550 at 9:28 AM on February 27, 2009
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