Browned, Faded, Dogeared
I have a recurring habit of buying fragments of other people’s family history. There’s something very melancholy about finding discarded photos in antique or junk shops. Whole lives heaped in random jumble. On Saturday, I found bits and pieces of a photograph of a family at a beach. The partial captions place the family in 1924 in Ferndale.
These three women are probably sisters or cousins–they appear in other family groupings on the tattered pages.
The photographs I buy are always are in bad shape—browned, faded, dog-eared but I find them very compelling. Not just for the women in the foreground. The tiny things going on in the background: the sisters’ feet; a girl hugging an older woman; a boy waving.
