What’s in a photo image? Have you ever really looked beyond the faces in your family photos to find obscure details? As an author, I’ve spent many hours searching through old pictures and gleaning what I could from them.
Photographs document more than individuals’ moods and settings. Every image has a background that discloses added details. An infinitesimal item often reveals a hidden truth.
I’m going to offer a few of my family photos as examples. But before I do, I should forewarn you; I did not have a happy childhood.
That’s me, age four, posing with my parents.
Right off, I note that no one in this picture is smiling. The backdrop suggest we were visiting my maternal grandmother’s home in Florida. But what else is noticeable?
My mom and dad are disengaged. Their arms appear to touch ever so slightly, which could have been unintentional. Mom looks dressed for a ladies’ tea, and Dad appears to be wearing someone’s Goodwill donation. Clearly, he did not take any cues from Mom on how to dress that day. Maybe he didn’t give a flip what his mother-in-law thought about him. (He didn’t.)
The auto‘s color suggests a cheerful owner. Definitely not our vehicle.
Now let’s look at another example:
This is a picture of my brother washing dishes. He has used a barstool to reach the sink, which suggests someone staged the chair for him.
Can you guess the time period? The refrigerator is copper-colored, as are the cabinet fixtures. Research tells me that GE sold it’s first “coppertone” fridge in 1964. I happen to know this picture was taken that year, based on my brother’s age.
What else can you tell from the background? I see a bottle of cough syrup and baby bottles lining the kitchen backsplash. The bottles indicate that my two-year-old brother had not yet learned to drink from a cup. But more concerning is the electric cord dangling from the clock just outside the frame. Note how the cord runs behind the sink and over to a wall socket. This image was taken before the advent of GFI breakers. Yikes!
It’s fun to extract as many details as you can from family photos. What might you find in your family album that you’ve previously overlooked?
I’ve written about my absentminded dad and some of our family shenanigans in my humor book, Idiots and Children, available from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Idiots-Children-Slightly-Off-Kilter-Firearms-ebook/dp/B00OY2QOYG/
Diana Estill 