Randomentality recently posted a wonderful page of photos entitled “Where I Began”. These are not photos taken with his usual wonderful and eclectic eye, but rather old family portraits and snapshots. I haven’t yet put my finger on why this type of vernacular photography appeals to me, but it does so immensely. I suppose part of it is that after a certain age and acquisition of a certain education, I can only approach photography and documentation from a point of view that is antithetical. That is to say, I think before I shoot. Which is not to say there is anything wrong with that, or that I feel my work is somehow tainted because of this. It’s simply my point of view which can never be the same as the point of view that took these old portraits, or the photo above. But then again, I think it naive to presuppose that whoever took these old family photos was an innocent bystander. And that camera in the middle of the subject and shutter-presser? As guilty and culpable as sin.
The above photo is of my father-in-law (on the right), taken when he was around 16, which would place the photo from 1960 or so. He’s with one of his nephews, and they’re in Yamagata prefecture. I like this photo because, rather than timeless, it feels to me place-less. With those hats, they could be characters in a Cormac McCarthy or Larry McMurtry novel, growing up somewhere in a small Texas town like Anson or Iowa Park, towns my father grew up in.