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From The Attic

These days we're inundated with images. Making pictures is easy. I think this has made it harder to see what is really there to be seen — not only in the pictures, but also in the world beyond them. Making pictures is easy; seeing the world in front of us is hard. These photographs made me stop and look and see. I hope they will do that for you as well. View them in slideshow. Look at the faces.
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Two Mothers, Two Daughters <div class="gg_commentary">And yet these photos from the attic are more than ordinary snapshots from another era. As I worked on these photographs that I did not take, I began to feel as if I were in a way collaborating with that photographer now gone. And our collaboration was, as collaborations are, full of challenges and compromises. The quality of the images as they are today must be far from what they had been when they were made. I wondered if these negatives had ever been printed. I wondered if the photographer could see these prints now, would he or she be able to see what I see in them? Could they see through their memories of moments lost the luminous presence of the timeless moments they reveal?</div>
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Two Mothers, Two Daughters

And yet these photos from the attic are more than ordinary snapshots from another era. As I worked on these photographs that I did not take, I began to feel as if I were in a way collaborating with that photographer now gone. And our collaboration was, as collaborations are, full of challenges and compromises. The quality of the images as they are today must be far from what they had been when they were made. I wondered if these negatives had ever been printed. I wondered if the photographer could see these prints now, would he or she be able to see what I see in them? Could they see through their memories of moments lost the luminous presence of the timeless moments they reveal?

  • Mothers and Daughters <div class="gg_commentary">We moved into a new house about two years ago. Some time later I found in the attic four rolls of black and white film. They were not in good condition, but I managed to get them unrolled and scanned. As the images appeared on my computer screen, I was surprised and moved by what I saw.</div>
  • Boy on a Donkey <div class="gg_commentary">Though the pictures are badly degraded, to me this only adds to their charm and their poignancy. What remains on the film is what can never be captured on the film in the first place &#8212; not the details of faces and places, but the spirits of people who laughed and cried where I now laugh and cry with my own family. In a sense the pictures are just snapshots of special moments &#8212; a girl's birthday party, a family vacation &#8212; just a few brief days in the lives of an American family. These are same things we all take pictures of, memorials of days we can never forget.</div>
  • Two Mothers, Two Daughters <div class="gg_commentary">And yet these photos from the attic are more than ordinary snapshots from another era. As I worked on these photographs that I did not take, I began to feel as if I were in a way collaborating with that photographer now gone. And our collaboration was, as collaborations are, full of challenges and compromises. The quality of the images as they are today must be far from what they had been when they were made. I wondered if these negatives had ever been printed. I wondered if the photographer could see these prints now, would he or she be able to see what I see in them? Could they see through their memories of moments lost the luminous presence of the timeless moments they reveal?</div>
  • The Girl Looks Back <div class="gg_commentary">I cleaned the images and repaired scratches and dust, fixed exposures, and so on, but I didn't want to repair too much. I was not attempting a restoration. I wanted something else. I wanted to bring out, if I could, what moved me about these photos.</div>
  • White Dress and Ribbons
  • Girl with Purse, Boy with Smile
  • Sitting on the Bench
  • Girl on Donkey, Pointing
  • A Boy's First Ride
  • Girl, Arms Raised
  • Third Birthday Cake, One Candle Out
  • The Last Candle
  • Birthday Girl and Her Cake
  • Three Girls Waiting for Ice Cream
  • Boy and Girl Waiting for Ice Cream
  • The Baby Wants Cake Too
  • The Cake
  • The Joy of a Child is without Guile
  • Satisfaction
  • Impatience
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