Our family photos are in danger.
Most families have hundreds of disorganized analog photos deteriorating in their homes. These photos hold valuable family memories and are highly susceptible to damage and loss.
To historians, family photos exist on the margins of global history -- they aren’t considered “newsworthy” enough to be catalogued in the National Archives. Yet for families, photos are visible accounts of personal history. Within each collection, there are icons of ancestry in the form of birthdays, weddings and anniversaries.
Without the stories that explain these photos, their value is diminished. Most of these stories live inside individuals’ memories -- when they die, the stories die with them. We must share our stories or our family photos will end up as anonymous artifacts in thrift stores, along with the countless others.
My grandparents were the inspiration for the Save Family Photos project. I'm lucky to have matriarchs and patriarchs who love telling stories. My grandmother has a large, wood-paneled wall of family photos: My grandparents as children, my father graduating from high school, my uncle as a student in New York City, my aunt at a swim meet. In that wall, I saw faces full of hopes and dreams before I ever existed. My story started before me.
When my grandfather died this year, I wanted to celebrate the legacy he left behind. So I started scanning old photos of him -- from his childhood to military service, to marrying my grandmother and raising my mother.
Then, I posted a photo and a story about him on Instagram and invited family and friends to do the same for their loved ones. In turn, they encouraged people in their networks to share. Now I receive family photos and stories from all around the world.
Save Family Photos started as a personal project on Instagram and quickly grew into a virtual campfire. It's a safe place where people can gather and share their stories, one photo at a time.
This photo of me and my sister Masha was taken by my father, Eugene Kolomatsky, on Pidgeon Meadow Road, in Flushing, Queens, back during the Madmen years. It was our childhood kitchen, in the house where I lived for over 20 years. It was tiny. These are probably the home's original cabinets — they seem so classic. There was a very useful broom cabinet, on the left, that I've often wished for in my present kitchen. I remember looking down at this bathing suit at Jones Beach as we played in the surf. It's hard to imagine now that I was this young when I wore it. It was a favorite. Masha was probably setting up the shot or something. Our father, who's now 81, was (and is) an avid photographer. He told me that he'd vowed to himself to keep his Leica around his neck for ten years when we were kids. And he pretty much did it. His archive is deep and his eye is great, and I've told him how much I appreciate his gift of preserving and documenting our lives. ~shared by @kolomatsky & @fotogene32 #savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Jun 6, 2014 at 5:35am PDT
Old photos are testaments to time, to memory, to our human history. But unlike us, they can live forever. Me, Mom and Apollo 13. JFK Space Center, 1970. Different times back then. There was no crazy security; we walked right up. And my Nana, who took this photo, had a great eye! This is straight out of her Polaroid Land Camera. ~shared by @grayers #savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum #polaroid #landcamera #tbt #throwbackthursday A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on May 5, 2014 at 5:59am PDT
"To collect photographs is to collect the world." - Susan Sontag In this incredible photograph, my great-grandmother Madeleine and her sisters Thérèse and Martine sit in an early airplane with their friends in France. It was 1908 and airplanes were making their public debut. People partied and celebrated worldwide. On May 14, 1908, Wilbur and Orville Wright took Charles Furnas, one of their mechanics, up as the world’s first airplane passenger. There were other experimental aircraft taking to the skies in Europe too. 1908 was truly the year of public flight and my family was celebrating by sitting in an early model of an airplane! ~shared by @come312 #savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum #tbt #throwback #throwbackthursday #airplane #airplanes #aviation #aviationhistory A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Jun 6, 2014 at 6:17am PDT
My grandfather - my mother's father - passed away when I was young, so I didn't have much time with him. This photo is from a trip to a Christmas tree farm. It's one of the few pictures I have with him, and certainly my favorite. He had a wonderful heart; even on his deathbed, he was helping others. ~shared by @nathanholritz Holidays stir up memories - and photos are one way to remember our loved ones. Will you take time this season to share a favorite family photo? Just use hashtag: #savefamilyphotos A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Dec 12, 2013 at 9:00am PST
We become who we are after understanding who they were. This is my grandmother Velma Steward Sanders (center) with her siblings Emma and RT in Navarro County, Texas in 1922. My sweet grandmother and her sister have lived in the same community in Texas their entire lives! They lived within a mile radius of their siblings. Their father, Jim, donated the land for the colored school and part of the cemetery in Goodlow, Texas. Uncle RT went to WWII and served overseas. He's the baby in the picture, but he's now 93! My grandmother will be 97 in June. This picture is a great glimpse into their beginnings. ~shared by @aaronlmyers #savefamilyphotos #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #tbt #throwbackthursday A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on May 5, 2014 at 6:23am PDT
My Mom on her first bike ride. 1950 in Wyoming, small town America. This photo is from my granddad's slide collection. Whenever we would all get together over the holidays, part of the family tradition was to gather in the living room for a slide show and share the stories behind the photos. ~shared by @debgarr9903 #savefamilyphotos #oldphotos #familyhistory #vintagephotos #foundphotos A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Sep 9, 2014 at 6:23am PDT
What treasures wait patiently in boxes? This is one of the best pictures I've ever seen. My mom and I found this while digging through a box of old photos which I'd never seen before. These are my grandparents, Don and Joan Gulick, on their wedding day, August 21st in the early 1950's. My grandparents are two of the most important people in the world to me; they helped raise my sister and me. My grandmother died 15 years ago, so anything I can find of hers is something I treasure, but this picture is something special. It's so beautifully candid and captures how in love and happy they were. They were married almost 50 years when she died and still just as in love as the day this was taken. ~shared by @jurassikate #savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Mar 3, 2014 at 5:56am PDT
Some sunny memories come up when we find old photos. Here I am in Cape Coral, Florida circa 1967, just hangin' with my Dad in my Big Indian canoe. There was a housing boom going on in Florida during the 60s. The bubble burst in the 70's, but we visited my uncle who was a developer in the area, once a year. And although he's a banker, not an Ad Man, my Dad definitely had a Don Draper thing going on! ~ shared by @grayers #polaroid #savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Apr 4, 2014 at 6:46am PDT
“Preserve your memories, keep them well; what you forget you can never retell.” -Louisa May Alcott Meet my grandmother, Lura Facemyer, who passed away a few years ago at 98 years old. This photo was taken in about 1930 and is striking for how youthful, beautiful and stylish she looks. I knew her only in the last quarter of her life, but I could always bring a smile to her face when I showed her this photo. She would usually launch into stories about that time in her life: living through the Great Depression, helping take care of her 11 brothers and sisters or meeting my grandfather. Now, it brings a smile to my face when I look at it. ~shared by @alanpittman #savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Apr 4, 2014 at 7:18am PDT
My grandpa was really into photography. He took thousands of photos over the years. He took them while serving in the Army in Italy and Germany in the early 1950s, he took them of his beloved Boxer and Great Dane, and he took them of his family. I scanned hundreds of slides for my grandparent's 50th anniversary party about ten years ago. Of all the photos my grandpa took, this one is hands-down my favorite. It was taken around 1958 or 1959. It shows my great-grandma (his mother) with my aunt Karen and my Mom as children at Ft. Meyers Beach, FL, where they were living at the time. I love the mood and the beautiful light, even if it is underexposed. I love my mom’s dirty shirt and her crooked bangs, my aunt’s sweet smile and my great-grandma’s faraway look. This photo had almost been forgotten, and I’m so glad I rediscovered it. It now hangs in my house, my mom’s house and my aunt’s house. My grandpa passed away a year and a half ago, and it had hung on one of his walls as well. ~shared by @triciaophoto #savefamilyphotos A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Jun 6, 2014 at 7:07am PDT
This is one of the coolest and most priceless pictures I've ever held in my hands. This is the farm house in Missouri where I grew up. The house was built in 1895 and members of our family have lived in it ever since. The woman in the photo was one of my ancestors, named Emma, and the man next to her is also a relative, named "The Bull." In fact, our family lived in it until a tragic fire a few weeks ago. The fire started in the back of the house and went straight up to the second floor, where most of our family antiques were. We were very fortunate and were able to recover quite a lot, including hundreds of historic family photos we found under the rubble of our home. This photo was dated pre-1930, since the second half of our house didn't even exist until then. I am so glad these photos made it through the fire. ~ shared by @kelseyjo_001 #savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Mar 3, 2014 at 6:41am PDT
A 'selfie' of my Granddad in the mid-1920s in St. Louis, before selfies even existed. Here, my Granddad, Charles Edward "Eddie" Niesen, sits for photo booth portraits. This boy with a bright smile was the baby in his family; he was born the same year that his oldest sister eloped with her husband. I think he spent most of his childhood competing for his parents’ attention, as he became an uncle around the time that these photos were taken. A few years later, tragedy struck when the small grocery store his parents owned and operated went out of business after the onset of the Great Depression. A few days later, his father took his own life. Nonetheless, his family recovered, and Eddie became a pipeline engineer. He went on to meet my grandmother, Joe, who was named after her father, an affluent doctor. Grandma Joe had her masters’ degree in social work and was perfectly-paired with my Grandad. My grandparents were truly a quiet force; they believed in living below their means and valued practicality, but were always selflessly generous to those who needed their help -- especially their children and grandchildren. I'm grateful for my Grandad's contagious optimism and balanced pragmatism. You can see both of those traits in his face here, as a little boy with his future ahead of him. ~shared by @andrewniesen #savefamilyphotos #oldphotos #foundphotos #analogphotos #filmisnotdead A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Aug 8, 2014 at 11:01am PDT
Stories are the currency of our past, present and future. Without them, we are bankrupt. And our old family photos trigger those stories. Meet my great grandma, Heleni, who is reading a book to my 4-year-old aunt Magdalene. The year was 1949, just after the Civil War in Athens, Greece. My grandma describes her mother Heleni as a wise woman who adored reading books, even though she had a very basic school education. Heleni worked as a seamstress in a corset factory. She looks very traditional with a scarf over her hair, but my grandma says her deepest desire was to see all of her children finish college. And she did - all of her children completed college before Heleni passed away at 98 years old. This is one of many truly beautiful old photos of my family. I have scanned each photo in order to preserve them and the stories they tell. These photos always remind me of my family's struggles and strong values. ~shared by @aggelika_tz #savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Mar 3, 2014 at 6:05am PDT
This is one of my most prized photographs. My grandmother Virginia Benton O'Brien and my grandfather William A. O'Brien. My mother is with them in the stroller, and my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Bill are walking alongside. My grandfather was a physician and professor at the University of Minnesota. My grandmother was hired to care for his two young children after his first wife died. They fell in love and were married. My mother was born shortly after. This photograph of them was taken in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1937. ~shared by @julie_abnet #savefamilyphotos A photo posted by Save Family Photos (@savefamilyphotos) on Nov 11, 2014 at 5:33am PST
