Talking Pictures

I love looking at old photographs, especially black and white ones. I wonder what the story behind the photos is. Who the people pictured are and how their lives turned out.

The author of this book started collecting photos at a young age. His grandparents would drag him to all kinds of garage sales and flea markets, and that’s where his hobby began. What first fascinated him is that photos of perfect strangers are even sold at all. Then he came across a photo of a girl who looked like the one he had a crush on at summer camp. He bought it and kept it and didn’t buy another random photo for another 15 years, when he removed the little cardboard frame from the photo of the girl to discover that her name was Dorothy, aged 15, who died of leukemia.

Those little written captions in the stranger’s life touched him, and he began to search for more photos with writing on them. The rest of the book is just that—photos of the past. Some are happy, others are sad, and some are plain goofy. There’s nothing super amazing about this book. But if you like looking through old photos this book will fit the bill. It’s peaceful and relaxing and will make you want to treasure your personal photos a bit more.