old photos

Having decided that I need to stop making my focus trying to find the perfect muse I thought I would focus more on the history of objects. I have decided that I want to look closer at my own history and relatives. Looking through old boxes at home I found a collection of photographs belonging to my grandma which essentially depict the past 100 years of my family on my dad's side. I have become increasingly interested in found objects with a history and old photographs definitely have the stories and history that I am looking for. There are so many aspects to these old images that intrigue me - the physical condition of the photos, the handwritten explanations of the images, the composition, the people, and the objects and places they've chosen to be photographed with/in front of. I also find it quite eerie that looking at the photos there is a definite sense that these people are no longer alive and are frozen in time in these images. There is also obviously a very personal connection to these images and certain pictures that I find strongly drawn to and can see myself in. I feel like whilst drawing from these images, studying their faces and body language, I conjur up a personality in my head and feel like I have met these people. It also comes back to what I wanted to achieve right at the beginning of this project - making sure that people are not forgotten and trying to making people interested and intrigued by their lives and history.
As well as using my own images I have also found a website of Vintage Images that people send in which have even more of an air of mystery about them as I have no idea who they are, where they're from, how old the image is or who this person is, which makes the drawings even more interesting as I am almost inventing a personality.