Name a show with time travel as a theme. I’ve likely seen it. A book with time as a plot. I’ve likely read it. There is something fascinating about the whole idea of actually stepping back into the past. Our photos let us peek into that realm but there is always something missing. We can…
In the late 1970s, my mother decided to organize her pictures. It was way before acid and lignin free materials were readily available. In fact, product advertising was often misleading. She decided it would make a nice present for her children if she placed some of our pictures in albums. She chose the low-cost and…
By now you’ve either watched an episode of the Marie Kondo series on joyful cleaning or know someone who has. My drawers are now full of neatly folded clothes. I get it. We have too much stuff, but when cleaning wanders over into the photosphere well then I have an opinion. It’s not horrible to discard certain…
I have a story that will make you sick. Not literally of course, but as soon as I heard it my stomach flipped. We’re all struggling with photo overload. Our parents. Our stuff. It’s a lot. So in an effort to clean out our houses, we turn to short term storage. I did when we…
Several years ago I purchased this image at a photo show. It called to me from a case. “Find my story.” “Name me.” So I bought the image intrigued by the research possibilities. She’s in my book, The Last Muster: Faces of the Revolution. Here’s what I wrote. At some point in the late 1860s,…
An old Akin Family Association newsletter story mentioned Molly Ferris Akin. Did the young Quaker woman really sneak into the British encampment and fire a musket? If so, then she supposedly alerted the Americans to their location in Pawling, New York. The pieces of her story weren’t in one place. Verissima Productions and I traveled…
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It’s a picturesque town in the Berkshires. It is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum and where the sculptor Daniel Chester French once lived. It is also where Revolutionary War patriot, Agrippa Hull resided. On a steamy summer day, myself and Verissima Productions explored the town. We weren’t there to see the tourist…
Fitzwilliam and Rindge, New Hampshire are lovely towns situated on country roads. A blurry picture of Revolutionary War veteran, Eleazer Blake led me there. I arrived with Vermissima Productions on a typical spring New England day. It was cold, blustery, and sunny. We were hunting for details of Blake’s wartime service. We discovered many more…
At this list-making time of year, I stop and reflect on my favorite new things related to photos. I know that if you get my newsletter, then you love pictures too. Items mentioned here might be something you want to suggest to your personal gift giver. I won’t tell if you decide to buy it…
There are currently two popular books on the market that help us deal with all the stuff we’ve accumulated, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Put their advice together and you get the title of this piece. They both provide guidance, but it’s their solution to the problem of…