Lost & Found: Someone’s Vacation Photos

“I’m on vacation and it’s so beautiful I may never have another good film idea in my life.” ― Lars von Trier

This is the third and final installment in my Lost & Found series.

I’ve had some vintage photographic slides I bought at a thrift store years ago that I’ve always wanted to do a project with. The slides are from the 1950s and document one middle-class American family’s life. These images are a part of the unknown family’s slide collection used for my last two projects, “Lost & Found: Someone’s Family Photos” and “Lost & Found: Someone’s Military Photos”. This composite was created using the family’s vacation and travel slides.

I found it interesting that all of these unique images were ultimately just donated to a thrift store. Why? Did the last family member die? Did the remaining family member(s) not care about these old memories?

I decided to unearth this lost personal travel history by creating a patchwork composite of 30 slides. I placed each of the slides on a light table and photographed them with a macro lens. I restored the faded Technicolor transparencies and balanced the image tones to fit into a group in post-production.