A random dip into my overflowing box of "Found Photographs" comes up with a strange little print. Badly faded, creased and torn, it nevertheless provides a fascinating insight into a world long gone. Do a high-resolution scan and you can lose yourself in a Mandelbrot set of absorbing images.

Every picture tells a story, but very often, half a picture tells even more of the story. The picture tells the story of that moment in time when the shutter fired - the family gathered on the doorstep. I have no idea who they are - the photograph was part of a batch of unwanted … Continue reading Torn History

These days, geotags are automatically added to smartphone photos along with the date and the time (and the temperature and your hat size and the state of your bank balance, more than likely). In olden days, you had to depend on penciled captions in family albums. I have no idea who these two were, but … Continue reading Beat That, AI

You don't need to know the time, the place or t he names of the subjects to enjoy a good photograph. A degree of anonymity can, in fact, help; you can throw yourself into the scene and construct backstories and front stories to your heart's content. The strange thing about these four is that they … Continue reading Back Stories, Front Stories

Before you ask, let me say, I have no idea what is going on here. That, however, is the essence - and indeed, the joy - of collecting old and unwanted photographs. The only clue is a caption: "Andermatt 1924/25". Think of that as the film title, the photograph a still from the movie, and … Continue reading Andermatt 1924/25

I can never look at one of these group photographs of children from long, long ago without speculating about what became of them in the decades that were to come. What did life have in store for them: what successes and what failures; what challenges and what achievements? There are so many stories, even within … Continue reading So Many Stories

I've no idea who the child is or why the donkey seems to have lost its head, but that doesn't matter. It's just one of the prints from my more than plentiful supply of lost and unknown old photographs. It's summer, it's seaside, it's joyous.