Saturday, July 25, 2009

super sleuthin'


Front

Back

This last image raises some issues that I think are pretty central to the discussion of found photos. I hadn't read the back of this image carefully before but it could give the full name of the woman in this picture. I almost feel like I'm learning too much now. The fact that I can talk about them, try to analyze them, and fall in a weird kind of love with the characters I see in pictures makes it easy to forget that these are real people and these are isolated, sometimes accidental views into their lives that I've stumbled upon.

I think the fact that the information here isn't explicit is what I'm uncomfortable with. "Annette and Rochay" is written on the back of the other image. I found the photos in the same box. The name 'Annette' appears on the back of another image and I assume that it's her son pictured on the front. It may be logical that the little boy is a slightly older 'Rochay' but there's still a level of faith involved here and a long thread of my own assumptions.

Is the viewing of a found photograph always uninvited?

This post on one of my favorite blogs, Big Happy Funhouse, goes into another, seedier aspect of this issue. What responsibility to people's privacy does a collector of found photographs have?

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