In Paul’s post, he is also linking to this amazing collection of found film. I just spent a substantial part of an evening looking at all these pictures. The photos in this gallery together with the thoughtful writing by the nameless owner of all these cameras is a meditation into the fleeting nature of our lives. We see pictures of old people who must have died a long time ago and also snapshots of young children who by now must have grown up and whose own children are probably already in their twenties.

Photography can be harsh in its unwavering look at our aging faces, but then again photography is the only thing to bring back memories of lives well spent.

I assume that these pictures were taken in the early 1950s and judging from the shadows it looks like this parade happened somewhere in the south in summertime – maybe even close to the equator.

The roll is too far gone to decipher the banner the men are carrying… too bad.

Should anybody out there have some educated guesses on where or when this parade could have happened, please let me know….

This is the better of two almost identical shots:

From the car behind the boys I’d guess that this picture was taken in the late 50s or early 60s. Two of the boys seem to wear a school uniform and I would be very interested if anyone can come up with a positive ID for this insignia:

Again, this is a very nice entry for this virtual family album that I seem to be collecting. I’m now really looking forward to the film that will break this series of family pictures…

Hold on to your helmet – and secure those pants, too!

This image was one of about 4 usable shots on a roll of Kodak Verichrome Pan 620 film, all the others were double exposures or destroyed when the camera was inadvertently opened.

The film came together with a Kodak Brownie camera and several unopened boxes of film. These boxes had expiration dates between 1960 and 1962, so it is a save assumption that this picture was taken sometime in the late 1950s.

It is another beautiful family moment, slowly starting a theme together with the earlier found films.

I have been wondering – and indeed I have been asked – why I care about these old films that are bouncing around eBay, undeveloped and unseen. For me there are several reasons why this is interesting. These films are like an archaeological dig into our recent past, unearthing small pieces of what is already a different century.

And on a very personal level, there is a lot of nostalgia bottled up in these films. These pictures are very similiar to all the photos in our own family albums, and through their anonymity they turn into a generic family history, showing typical moments that we can all identify with.

The rolls were only loosely taped over and I had my doubts if there were any photos left after probably bouncing around some desk drawer for the last 40 years. But I dropped them off for development anyway and here are some of the results.

The first picture was the best of 9 photos on the first roll, all of them from a winter holiday in the mountains. The second picture is the only useful image on the other roll which was probably fully exposed when the camera was inadvertently opened.

Looking at the pictures, it is striking how different people posed for photos in the sixties, when for many young families it was still a novelty to have a camera and to record their memories for later.

But if photos were still something so special, it is disturbing to think of the reasons why these pictures had to wait for some 40 years before they would be developed by a complete stranger. Why would nobody in the family develop these rolls, even if they were found many years later? Especially if they were found later.

The photos in front of us have no answers. All that is left is the shadows of chemical reactions on film, tiny particles frozen in time, holding on to a long-lost memory of Happy Days.

There was a small notebook (imprinted with advertisement from Indianapolis, Indiana) in the box with entries that ended in 1964, and so it’s as good a guess as any that this picture here was taken in early 1964 – exactly 40 years ago – and then forgotten, probably because a new camera was bought and the old one was stashed away in a closet somewhere.

Light had entered that camera 40 years ago, carrying along the proud smiles and the laughter of this young family, only to be frozen in time, and forgotten.

And time went on… The children grew up. Humans landed on the moon. There was a war. An oil crisis. Presidents came and went. There were weddings. And Funerals. Children moved out and became parents themselves.

40 years went by, the chemicals of the film patiently holding their cargo of faces and smiles… until now…

This scene touched me with it’s squeaky-clean happyness – it’s a young family cheerfully looking into the future.

And now, indeed, they are.