This should be the last post for the next three or four days, which makes it the last for 2010, so I thought I'd end up with something more symbolic than visually interesting. This summer, June and July, I worked for the Census Bureau. In one of the older, run down apartment buildings I visited, I found these five snapshots. They were in the garbage that had been removed from a vacated unit. Most of my found photographs are found in thrift shops, antique malls, and EBay, but finding something that has been thrown out or left behind, well that doesn't happen often. I often wonder why people discard their old family photographs. These all have a printers stamp dated, "AUG 60," and 50 years isn't all that old. It's quite probable that the people in these photos are all still alive. Did the person who left these behind, after saving them for half a century, just give up on their memories of the past?
I've come to realize that not all photos that end up "lost" are of family members. Sometimes they're just duplicates that were given to friends. Then that particular family ends up with them and eventually their relatives end up with them and so it goes. Eventually someone who doesn't have a clue who the people are just tosses them. Knowing that has made it less "painful" to think of images being thrown away. We never really know if we have the originals or merely dupes given away. Think of it like old school photos you handed out. Surely they end up being tossed because eventually nobody recognizes you.
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