Medium Format Mysteries

_{Finding mysteries and memories in old film negatives at Yesterday's News, an antique store in Brooklyn}

To me, there's nothing better than a well-curated antique store. It's easy to lose hours browsing through the wares, dreaming up stories about the people who once loved them.

For class, I visited Yesterday's News, a popular antique store located in my neighborhood in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. There, I found several medium format film negatives for sale lovingly stacked in a ceramic dish and placed on oak dresser.

I picked a film negative up, held it up against the light, and immediately fell in love.

There's something hauntingly beautiful about these photos, I'm not quite sure what. Is it the off-kilter compositions? Or how the photographer, despite their technical ability, managed to catch moments of awe and beauty?

That's a really long candle wedged into the wine bottle!

Like this beautiful expression of delight on the woman's face. Is she really as tickled by the long candle wedged into a wine bottle as the photograph would have us believe? To me, the answer doesn't matter.

Perhaps, it was how, despite my heavy editing in Photoshop, I was unable to make out the details on some faces, their features overexposed and lost to film and time.

The obscured woman's face adds to the beauty, if you ask me.

Here we finally see the woman's face with her two children. Are they her children? We don't really know.

I wanted to know when these photographs were taken. Based on the Christmas tree, winter coat and the busy kitchen filled with bowls of food, it's estimated that most of these photographs were shot at an end-of-year party.

The boy on the right is barely visible. Sometimes I think he might be a specter.

Is the woman pushing the pram the same in the photo on the right?

A busy kitchen scene, setting up for what I assume is a large holiday party.

But which Christmas exactly?

Like any good detective, I went straight to a trusted source. Lucky for me, I didn't have to go far as my classmate Dina El-Aziz works as a costume designer and has an encyclopedic knowledge of fashion. I sent her a few photos, asking if she could zero in on the time period based on the fashion and hairstyles.

After some research, Dina managed to narrow the time to be between 1949 to 1950.

The patterned wall behind is so recognizable, making it easy to identify it in other photographs.

As she explains:

"The skirt is getting fuller, but not quite 1950s full. There was also a lot of bias cut outfits in the 1940s, but I don’t really see that in these silhouettes. That is why I feel like like the year is transitioning close to the '50s."

My favorite photograph of the lot. When trying to figure out the photographic timeline, I googled when Bugs Bunny (seen on the wall behind) was created. The answer? The late 30s.

Of all the photographs, none are more romantic and loving than these two stills taken on different days. The intimate nature of these photographs makes me wonder -- Is the photographer someone in their family? Their child perhaps? Someone with a budding interest in photography?

The candle wedged in the bottle shows up again.

Despite being decades old, the body language captured in these images still translates so clearly today. Look at how the man's gaze is on the camera while the woman looks away. Then there's the tender yet protective hook of the man's arm around the woman's body.

While the identities of these people may be a mystery, their feelings displayed in the photograph are not.