My foray into vernacular photography collecting

[Mainecoonmaniac]

My fiance' and I went to Seattle for a quick getaway. One place we have to visit is Watson Kennedy http://www.watsonkennedy.com/store/Main.asp.

Both stores have old snap shots torn out of albums for sale for $3 each. Some were over 100 years old. I was mesmerized by the photos. I was stepping back in time. Some have notes written of the people, place and time. Photos of those times 50-100 years ago seem to be special objects when it's different edges, emulsions and textures of paper. All of them are black and white fiber based paper and some are ferrotyped. I bought a few that are contact prints no bigger than postage stamps. Now I have a pile of them in glassine envelopes. I'd like to mount them with archival photo corners with a mat and display them. Do any other APUGers collect vernacular photographs?

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Yes, I do - and I blog about it (the link is in my signature). Vernacular covers a very wide range of images, from $1 photo postcards to Mathew Brady daguerreotypes. It's just as much fun to get the one as it is to get the other because you can discover images that are every bit as artful and pleasing to the eye in the instant-ancestor bin at the flea market as photos from name artists selling in galleries.

 

[blacvulturetravels]

I do as well. I mostly focus on 1960s-1990s color photographs.