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This is a post featuring cute children and equally cute photos.

If you are allergic to either of those two things…you might want to get out now.

Hunting through boxes of photos at a flea market or antiques store, you will inevitably find an abundance of photos of kids. Everyone takes photos of their kids, right? Usually unless I am the parent of said kids (and since I have no children, probably unlikely) – I’m not really interested in photos of other people’s kids. Every once in a while though, I come across a kid so cute I can’t help but take that photo home with me. The photo above is one of my favorites. Such a beautiful candid moment captured between mother and child. I love the light streaming in through the window. What a happy, wonderful moment!

I think everyone needs a jumpsuit like this little boy. Easy access, just flyin’ free…not a care in the world. I have another photo of this little guy that I’ll be putting in another post!

This little one looks so happy on his rocking horse! It was his face that made me take this one home.

The expression on the little boy’s face in the photo above is adorable. I like to think that the mother is the one taking this photo. I only wish I also had the photo that the father was taking! This is another great candid moment.

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I found these three photos in a flea market in Massachusetts, but they’re actually from the Nyack area of NY. They show a very nice home (or business?) burning, and quite a few fire fighters attempting to put it out.  I say it might be a business because there is a sign hanging from the top of the front porch in the first photo (which could be the sign from a bed and breakfast or hotel?) – but it is too blurry to read what it says (bummer!).

By zooming in on the photos, you can see members of several different fire companies have convened to help put out the fire. The most clearly seen company in the photo is the Empire Hook and Ladder Co., No.1. The backs of their uniforms (especially in the third photo) show “EMPIRE H&L No.1” and – for reasons I have yet to find out – a duck. The company has a long history in Upper Nyack, NY.

After doing some googling, I found that the Empire Hook and Ladder Company No.1 built their firehouse in 1887 after their original one (ironically) burnt down two years earlier. The 1887 building (still standing) is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

I’m having a very hard time dating this photo. I did find a couple photos of the Empire Firehouse (aka Nyack Firehouse) from the Hudson River Valley Heritage website (http://www.hrvh.org/). The photos themselves are housed in the Nyack Library. The one shown below shows the firehouse in 1915. Their uniforms look very similar to the ones shown in my photos, but I don’t think my photos are quite that old. It’s hard to date fireman’s uniforms, and the fashions of the other people in the photos don’t give much away!

Another company name that you can see very faintly in the first photo is “Jackson“. This could be either the Jackson Hose Co., No.3 or the Jackson Fire Engine Co., No.3. Another uniform shows a large number “5″, which could be from the  Highland Hose Co., No. 5 since they operated in the same area of NY. (source) All three (or four) companies were founded in the late 1800′s. You can also see “NFD” on the back of one of the uniforms in the third photo, which probably stands for “Nyack Fire Department”.

I would very much like to find out where this beautiful building is (or was) and whether or not it was saved. I’d also like at least an aproximate date on the photos, and what the ducks on the backs of their coats mean! I’m not sure if these were taken by a journalist, or just an onlooker. Unfortunately there is nothing written on the backs. I am going to try and contact both the Nyack Fire Department and the Nyack Library to see if they can give me any more information.

Click the photo to enlarge.

This photo is one of a series (presumably). It is an exposure test (in the darkroom, you would make several of these in order to get the correct exposure for your print). Written in pencil on the back it says “Paper normal No. 6″ and “Daniel Nicol No.3″. On the front, written in the border is “One 6th exposure“.

I think it’s safe to assume that this particular print would have been considered significantly too dark. It was probably relegated to a pile of other versions with incorrect exposures. But that’s what I love about it. The under-exposure makes the clouds seem amazingly dramatic and ominous.

Click the photo to enlarge.

Here is another photo that is grossly underexposed. You can barely see the subjects of the photo and I’m sure it wasn’t what the photographer intended when they took the shot. This, however, is what makes the photo beautiful to me.

Since I don’t know the subjects of the photo,  all I see are the silhouettes of two people – a man and a woman – standing in a room bathed in what could be morning light. We don’t know how they are connected or what happened this particular morning – only that there is some kind of connection between these two. Is he just about to sit down at the table to read the paper? Is she about to cook breakfast?

Even though you can’t see it, I imagine she is smiling – but as an observer you don’t know why. Sometimes a little mystery makes an image.

This was one of the first photos I found. The second I picked it up I knew it was coming home with me. I immediately took it back to my friends at the flea market to show them how awesome it was. (You can click any of the photos in this post to make it larger.)

Not sure the exact time period on this one. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say maybe 1900′s? I found some images on google of boys wearing almost those exact sailor suits from that time period. The photo is about 6″ x 8″ mounted on a black board. There is no information written on it anywhere.

There are so many things that I love about this photograph. The way every kid has a grumpy face because they probably had to sit there so long for the exposure. The exposure itself is beautiful – the way the sun is streaming through the windows and shutters. I love how some of the kids have an extra pair of shoes – probably for playing outside. The simple arithmetic problems written on the chalkboard making it the perfect classroom shot. The giant bows (that some of the girls were undoubtedly forced to wear).

The paintings on the wall make me believe that the teacher must have been a cat lover. There is one of a group of rolly-polly kittens, and another of a woman wearing clogs holding a large black cat . A third photo shows what looks to me like a woman bending down to talk to three little girls on a doorstep. Or they could be cats…who knows! Either way, how quaint!

Because the exposure must have been fairly long, some of the children must have moved slightly – blurring their faces. Their grumpy faces combined with the blur adds a sort of creepy undertone to the whole photograph. I love it!

Click to enlarge.

Hello,  welcome to Forgotten Photographs!
There isn’t much here at the moment, but that will soon change – stay tuned!

A few years ago I was at a flea market and came across a couple of old photo albums full of pictures. Obviously this is nothing unusual for a flea market – but it was new to me. It was strange to see whole books of someone’s cherished memories sitting out there in the sun for sale. So I bought them. Little did I know I would soon fall in love with the mysteries of other people’s photos.

Since then I’ve accumulated a decent collection of photos. I’ve been to thrift stores, flea markets and antiques shows on the hunt. I’ve sifted through probably thousands of photos to find ones that spoke to me or had a certain kind of spark. I think one of my most favorite things to do is to scan a photo into the computer and find details in it that you never noticed before. It’s amazing how much information you can find on the internet these days – and with just a little detective work you can find out a wealth of information about a snapshot  -  just from a tiny sign on a building, or a single sentence written on the back.

It was at a massive antiques show that I discovered that there are many other people who love old photographs just like me. This is why I decided that I need to share these images that I find. They are glimpses of a world we will never see again, and of people who lived but are no longer with us. It would be a shame for all of these memories to waste away in the hot sun at a flea market, or in musty boxes in someone’s basement. Hopefully there are other people out there who agree!

I would love – if nothing more – for people to enjoy the glimpses of history and life that I post here. Maybe some of you could even help me date or identify some of the photographs I post.  I feel like each one is a little mystery…waiting to be solved.

So stay tuned – there is lots more to come!

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-Angie