Histories on glass

My wife and I found a few old glass plates in a junk/antique store one weekend when we went driving around outside of Lexington. This was earlier this year--maybe sometime during the spring. Old boxes of photographs--especially just everyday snapshots of families and regular everyday stuff--have always fascinated me. I always wonder about what happened to all of the people...and I also wonder about the moment that the images were made. Who took the picture? In this case, what kind of 4x5 was used? What was happening in that moment? How and why did this men pose together? I am really fascinated by the social and cultural conventions that go into posing for and taking photographs. Glass plate negatives are incredibly fascinating. Just the fact that they can survive for so many years completely amazes me.

Recent traces of occupation

Sometimes it's interesting to look at contemporary thing from an archaeological perspective. Check out this photo that I took while I was down in Baja California this past summer--it's of the imprint left by my tent. I took this photo just after rolling it up in the morning, as I was getting ready to head out. Notice the smoother depression left by the tent, all of my footprints around the edges, and the small lines that the tent poles left as they as they dragged across the sand while I folded them up. Notice also that the sand where my tent was is just a bit drier because it was covered from the salt air. These kinds of short term traces disappear pretty quickly...and it would be interesting to see exactly how quickly. Archaeologists are dealing with similar kinds of material traces, but these kinds of subtle remnants are often long lost. Just interesting to think about.