Some of what we leave behind/Other people’s photos

I couldn’t decide on a title, so there are two to this post. To be honest, I had a really hard time coming up with something to talk about in the first place, let alone finding it a title. Taking photos at the moment seems a little frivolous. I have taken them, a lot of them, on walks in the woods and in the neighbourhood, where I can take a deep breath and forget about what’s going on in the world right now, for a while. Posting them has been difficult.

Then I remembered some black and white photos I rescued a while ago from being picked up on garbage day, in front of an apartment building in the neighbourhood. We had walked by a few times already, there were pieces of furniture and cardboard boxes that looked full of old journals and photo albums.The pile had gotten smaller, day after day, after people picked up various items. The day I picked up the photos, there was hardly anything left, just the journals and these old photos laying in the bottom of a box. I have no idea who is on them, what their stories are, but I absolutely can’t stand the idea of photos going in the trash, it makes me very sad. I picked them up and here they are. Photos of strangers, traces we leave behind.

Valerie