I don't have a lot of really good photos of my grandparents' house. The photos above were taken in 2002. After my grandparents died, we moved all their stuff out of the house, painted the rooms and put in new carpet to get the house ready to be sold.
Before the new owners moved in, I spent a day photographing the empty house. Not surprisingly, the photos aren't very satisfying in providing a connection to that specific place. Because the carpet in the photographs was not my grandparents' gold 1960's carpet, there is no spark of recognition. Their furniture and knickknacks have been cleared out to make room for the new family. Any connection that's made is the result of squinting and imagining - not the same as identifying specifically with objects and textures. In that sense, the photos are less specific but more universal.
One of the items that I ended up with was their old Kodak disc camera. I was surprised to see that there was still a disc inside. The film is probably from the 1980s, so my expectations are pretty low that there will be anything on this disc. Even so, it's a little exciting to think about what this disc could hold. Maybe a photo of their dog Domino or a birthday party. Or the plum tree my grandpa planted in the backyard. I sent the film to Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, one of the only labs that still processes and prints disc film. (They are also the last lab to process Kodachrome.) I'll post the photos here if there's anything worth seeing.
0 comments:
Post a Comment