While I was browsing in
Twosided this morning, one of my favorite arty antique stores in Chicago, I came across a huge bin of negatives and was so overwhelmingly delighted. I don't even think many people know this, but I am so in love with analog and the darkroom printing process. Needless to say my impatience and laziness has unavoidably prompted me to become more and more consumed by digital photography and post-production techniques made available to us by all those tiny elves working for the insanely rich Adobe god. Nontheless there is such a romance and delicacy to negatives and prints to me, and before I could even begin to question if this was a good plan or not my project idea took hold of my body straight out of some Jackie Chan movie and the next thing I knew I was spending a ton of money I don't have on old plastic negatives that only I could convince myself I really really needed, or like, I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.
Photography has always been an intimate event to me, as when I'm either taking your picture or you're taking mine there is a vulnerability and an openness that we must both have in order to really create something big. Or maybe you just have to be unusually self-confident and just know you look great in front of the camera, I don't really care as long as it works. Regardless I think one of the most exciting things about going through and developing these (or any) mystery negatives is that I feel the privilege of experiencing this intimacy that comes with photographing other people. I think we're always trying to somehow relate to each other no matter how absolutely insane that is because really we are all quite different and I wasn't born in the 1930s (or whenever these are from--and if you're some brainy date wizard and have any idea you should contact me as soon as humanly possible because obviously this is a life-or-death situation we are dealing with here). Alas I find myself projecting some sort of romantic storyline of histories on these families, but once again that may be due to my attachment and feelings of enchantment toward dated negatives and the analog process itself.
Nonetheless, if you like making up their story for yourself I wish you happy day dreaming and viewing. I'll be posting as I develop the images, so there's more coming. Also, if you're one of the people in these photographs and you really were Brazilian's Vogue top supermodel or the inventor of the printing press, please contact me as I'd like for you to confirm my assumptions.
Cheers!
ACM
