Other people's pictures in my home

A photo I found at a Paris flea market now sits on top of our armoire.

I watched the documentary "Other People's Pictures" and then took a look at my (very small) collection of photos rescued from flea markets.

First, my thoughts on the documentary. The film presents an even-handed glimpse of the world of snapshot collecting as seen through a flea market in Chelsea, NYC. I say "glimpse" because I would have loved to learn even more. The film does not show how the vendors acquire the photos they sell, for example. Instead, it focuses on a few collectors as they hunt for photos that resonate with them. A few I remember:

• One man collects photos representing what he calls "the banality of evil"--scenes of Nazis in uniform enjoying a family dinner or out on a date. The man hangs the "banality of evil" photos on a wall in his home not 10 feet away from another photo wall that displays his own relatives, many of whom died in concentration camps.
  
• A woman who works with disabled adults loves to find that rare photo of a child with down syndrome, happy at home during a time when most parents institutionalized children with mental disabilities.
  
• A gay man sees his search for old homoerotic photos as a means of preserving a neglected history.

Other people are less specific, hoping simply for that serendipitous "find" that speaks to them--an attitude that I share.

Two more photos from a Paris flea market that are now part of our family.

Some of the people featured in the documentary have thousands of other people's photos packed into closets and containers under their beds. Unlike them, I own only a few, and have scattered them about my home and office. Family snapshots are my favorite. I find their spontaneity far more interesting than most posed portraits. The popularity of candid or "journalistic" photography at weddings suggests that I am not alone in my love of spontaneity. My own style of photography is greatly influenced by the aesthetic of snapshots and I prefer to go into a photo session without a checklist of standard poses.

For me, the old flea market photos represent a connection with the history of photography and they show me that images (like poems) have the power to create connections and meaning that transcends their original context.

Take a look at the photos around your own home. What role do they play in your life? You may want to document your use of photos as part of the Monthly Special (just a suggestion).

How do you use photos?

Because of the photo within a photo challenge, I have been thinking more about the photos around me--the ones in my office and at home sitting on shelves, hanging on walls and, well, in this case, sticking out of books.

I doubt I'm the only one out there to use just about anything for a bookmark. Some of my favorite makeshift bookmarks are snapshots back from before I went digital. I came across a small pile I took in Paris and London way back in the twentieth century. They're quirky photos of store fronts, street signs or candid scenes that I like, but what am I going to do with them? Put them back in the shoe box? Flylady them away for the sake of less clutter? Neither seems right, so I'm letting them get worn and used so they can die of natural causes rather than be buried alive.

The photo within a photo you see here documents one way I use photos. I bought a book about blogs yesterday, read the first seven chapters (it's a fast read, and as a new blogger I love learning from people who would slaughter me in google analytics risk) and picked a photo from the pile of surrogate bookmarks (fyi, it's a woman reading a newspaper next to a metro stop in Paris). Today, when I saw the legs popping out the top of the book, it made me laugh so I took a picture for this post.

This certainly isn't going to win any technical prizes (it has focus issues, noise--don't get me started), but the photo within a photo theme and blogging caught my eye and I wanted to save the moment. I have never taken many photos of how I use photos, but I think it's something worth exploring.