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There's a new documentary, called Other People's Pictures. A pair of filmmakers, Lorca Shepperd & Cabot Philbric, took their cameras and pointed them at a class of people I've encountered before: that odd type of person who buys the anonymous photos of other people. There's thousands of photos for sale on eBay right now. Many are of famous people, exotic places, strange things...but many are just people. People posing, people working, people covering their face in hopes of stopping the photographer from snapping the shutter. Those photos you've been taking your whole life? Someone might be buying them eventually; somebody you don't know. I admit, I'm going off reviews & articles, but what I've gathered is that the photo afficionados in Other People's Pictures are looking for a bit of their own identity. One man collects photos of men showing affection, another collects strong-willed women, another only Nazis. While we collect the photos of our own families, in hopes of using them as tokens of our own existence, others wish to have similar tokens of their own. The next best thing to their own? The tokens of others. It may not be an intent to exist in the photo, but to use the item to open up something within the collector. The collector of Nazi photos was not a Nazi sympathizer; he was an Israeli immigrant, finding a key to his origins, the collective history that he is a participant in. Collecting a token identifier is akin to wearing the skin of a wolf, in hopes of acquiring it's characteristics. While it might not really transfer any superhuman powers, the token is a key to the posessor releasing something inside them. If Disney has taught us anything, it's that holding a bird's tailfeather can be enough for a little elephant to spread his ears and soar into the sky. Photos don't work that way for me, but that doesn't make me any less of an ephemeral collector. My main collection, archived over at Voices From The Thriftshop, is of the audio snapshots people have taken. New parents recording playtime with their son, an aging organist saving her works for her children, a teenager singing along with the pop hits of the time -- or an old man giving his last will and testament. These people weren't trying to entertain, they weren't trying to be heard by anyone but their friends and family. Much like the gulf between a magazine photo and a family photo, these recordings are far different than the contents of most cassette tapes. A few years ago, I purchased a camera, complete with case. In a pocket of the case, I found a collection of papers and things -- forgotten documents. A $15 Walt Disney World receipt from 6/19/1983, and a "Tips on your Visit" card from EPCOT. A wedding invitation from 7/16/1994. Business card from Echo Canyon River Expeditions in Colorado Springs. Wal-Mart receipt from 8/18/93 for film. A $1 receipt from Theodore Roosevelt National PArk, A Mary College (now University of Mary) postcard, and brochures from other North Dakota landmarks. An "I {heart} DC" pin, Vistor's Gallery pass for the 98th Congress signed by former Senator Mark Andrews, another for the House of Representatives signed by Byron Dorgan, and ticket #140928 for a tour of the Capitol. Tourist ticket from Cusco Peru, used train passes for Machu Picchu, a postcard from Lake Titicaca, a paper marked Informacion de Bautismo -- "Baptism Information" -- but left blank, and an unused airmail envelope. An invitation to a timeshare presentation. Receipt from the Best Western Marina Inn from So Sioux City Nebraska. Monthly Parking pass #4788 for Sophisticated Parking Inc, 147-149 E 34th St, NYC. It depends on the person, but I don't consider this garbage; not any more than the photo collector could toss away a picture of a girl sitting on the steps of a farmhouse. Human memories are a strange thing: you don't need a literal memory to have the same effect. I can imagine this shared memory of an older couple visiting their government officials in Washington, visiting Mickey Mouse, riding a train to Machu Picchu, and it gives me something to feel. I could read a factual book, a travel guide, on any of those places, but that's not what I get from this. These slips of paper are the token of a life lived, a feather I can hold onto and know that my life means something, too. I can listen to the beginnings of life in the voice of a young child learning to speak, or the understanding of mortality in the voice of an old man. All the little bits of humanity, even if they're not originally mine, give me something to go on as I progress through my own humanity, making my own tokens to pass on to others.
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