What Time Looks Like
In those “check out these photos from the 19X0s” articles, it’s often the background of the picture that’s the most interesting. The ways signs looked, the clothing people wore, the neon lights or the font on the side of a delivery truck.
What did the 1980s look like?
My wife recently shared a photo of her and her dad goofing around in the living room. People thought the photo was cute, but most of the discussion took place over the TV set in the background. Memories! Remember those old console TVs?
I think about this truism – that we’re often most interested in the background, not the subject, of photographs – every time I take photos of the kids in the living room, or the window signs in downtown Ann Arbor. In the future, we’ll look back on these photos and remember what our time looked like.
For every photo we make, we’re recording a little slice of history.
(via Shaun, via Andy Adams)