Found Photos

Years ago when I lived in Iowa City, my friend Cindy found a photo on the street and brought it to me. The picture showed one young man, standing by himself but smiling at whoever took the photo, holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and a glass in the other. Cindy thought the guy in the photo looked like somone I knew. He wasn't, but I kept the photo anyway. I liked looking at it and imagining who the guy was, who took his photo, what the occasion might have been (was he alone with one other person, or at a party?). Years later I wrote a whole short story based on that photo. It's still tacked up on my bulletin board at home.

One of my fiction teachers came in one day and gave us each a photo of a person. Some were snapshots; some formal portraits. We each wrote a paragraph from our "person's" point of view. The instructor then displayed all the pictures at the front of the room while we took turns reading our paragraphs. We were to guess at the end of the reading which "person" was being described - and we all guessed perfectly.

In Bellingham, the used bookstore I went to posted on a bulletin board photos found in donated books. I stole a lot of those photos; in fact, sometimes I went to the store to look at the photos more than the books. When I started teaching, I began using these photos in class. They made good writing prompts: who are these people? What are they doing? Why did someone take the photo?

Of course now all this can occur online. I find photos at foundphoto.net. I have to say, found photos in the old days were better, simply because people took fewer photos. Getting drunk, for example, was not considered a major photo op. Still, there are some goodies. I display some here. If anyone who reads this post feels inspired to write a paragraph, poem, or story, please post!