Here's an issue: can you "find" photographs or other ephemera online in the same way you can offline? A photograph is already distanced from temporal issues in such a way that I wonder what that extra step out of the world does to an image. Often there's more description to an image online, if only, in this case "Great shot of Dad enjoying a beer in Germany, circa 1958. " though there's still enough ambiguity contained in that so as not to stifle the personal speculation that adds a wonderful richness to the photograph. Though, while there's one is not hindered from developing a unique narrative surrounding the picture the context of the find is removed.
Flickr will never be a dusty attic, I guess, but maybe there's something else to it. Maybe the sharer's impulse to share? Or the implications of putting an image on the web, the fact that now, no matter what, it will always be there? In that respect maybe posting old and new photographs online holds exactly the same import as physically collecting them, the internet memorializes these subjective moments in a way, really, that no collection ever could.
Anyhow, there's a link above to the original posting of the above image and Here's another link to the wonderful set it belongs to. If anyone has any other great online finds, I'd love to see them, send 'em my way.
