The Analogue Family Album
The family album served the purpose of both retaining the memory of shared events and of the individuals related. It also created a common history but also a mythology recognized by the people that ware part of the family (extended or nuclear).
When the snapshots of the family life where put in an album they were selected in order to retain the moments and the images that the person responsible for the safe keeping chose as representative.
There always a number of photos though that remained outside the album, the ones that did not fit in (either because they were not appropriate or because they were out of focus or over exposed). In spite of the fact that these photos did no make it in the family album they were still there on the roll of film. Whenever extra copies were required and ordered at a mini lab, from a friend for example that shared an event or vacations, or from other family members, it was usual the whole roll would be reprinted and those "bad photos" would be further circulated. In the end those photos too are part of the visual history and the memories of the people that shared them.
Today with the wide use of digital for all family and personal snapshots, the bad shots are more often than not deleted straight away, never to be seen. So the parallel visual history outside of the selections made by the individuals (of which photos to include in the "on-view" album) is forever lost. No alternative angle, no failure is acceptable.
Here I present a series of those "failed" images. The ones that and they not been shot on film would be lost. This is the Analog Family Album.
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