Look at your old holiday photos from Kos in 1986. That’s right, the old paper ones. There’s you with your mates toasting another happy night with Pina Coladas. So, who are those people in the background who just happened to be passing when the shot was taken? A bunch of Dutch entomologists? An American couple from Milwaukee in the throes of a relationship breakdown? Where are they now? Did they meet someone else? Are they happy or sad?
And-whose photos are you in? If you’ve lived in a tourist hotspot like London or New York, you’ve probably been an extra in dozens of snaps, especially now everything is digital, and every phone an infinite library of images. At one point, for a fleeting moment, your life and the photographer’s life coincided. Were you and that Japanese lady from Osaka really meant for each other? So much so that, had you spoken, you both would have left your partners and run off to start a new life together as consultant software engineers in Bali, Indonesia?
And who else is in that picture? Most of us lead harmless, uneventful lives, at least if given enough to eat and the basics of shelter. But might someone more sinister be lurking in your photo collection as well? A criminal? A psychopath? A journalist from the Sun? Once someone found a photo of a huge crowd in Vienna. It was taken on the day they proclaimed the First World War. And in among them, cheering away, was the young Adolf Hitler.[1] Even people like him get to stand around in crowds, before they have really begun on their life’s work, so to speak.
So now go back to your old albums and digital archives. Forget the family and friends. Look in the background. Because after reading this, someone there will be looking at you.
The image below has been reproduced from Bing search database It is a superb archive of images and graphics on every conceivable subject and should be widely consulted by researchers, journalists, teachers students and all with an interest in the furtherance of knowledge thanks, guys [1]
Learning, Science and Society 