Hello everyone! Welcome to another day of vintage photo fun. I must admit I'm having fun changing out my bio picture with vintage photos. Today I'm featuring my mom (click on the photo to enlarge it) on her very first day of school.
Yesterday I shared several ideas for telling meaningful and engaging stories from your past. You may be thinking to yourself, "I don't have any stories for my photos and there isn't anyone that I can ask".
Well, I'm here to tell you, you can still use them, and in some cases, even create meaningful layouts.
Make Observations about Fashion, Trends or Surroundings
Creating a meaningful layout when you don't have a story is actually pretty easy to do if you take cues from the fashion, decor, trends and surroundings in the photo(s). Take this layout, for example.
When I was looking at these photos I realized I didn't know anything about them, except who the people were and a couple dates. However, I was fascinated by the clothing of my grandma and my husband's grandma so instead of creating a page saying "this is grandma in 1935", I decided to journal my observations and thoughts about the fashions.
Here's another look at this approach.
In this photo of my grandma I was intrigued by the little details I saw; the flag hanging from the porch, the rocking chairs (one just the right size for her), and the doll and carriage. I simply made my observations into the journaling and even drew inspiration for the title from the flag hanging in the background.
Including your observations and perspective is a great way to make it meaningful and draw the reader into your layout, making them want to linger and really study the photo.
State the Facts
Another idea, is to simply state the facts about the photo.
Now, I could have journaled about our Easter traditions during my childhood, but I had already done that on another layout, so I decided to list the facts that I saw in this photo of my sister and I.
I thought I looked like I was pretty interested in what she was doing so I created a little blurb about that in my journaling. I also knew this was my first Easter since I was sitting in a bouncy seat so I used that for the title and added the date.
I don't have many photos of myself as a baby, so I'm happy I included this in my album, even without a story.
What if there aren't any clues in the photo?
You can follow Paula Gilarde's lead and journal about the mystery. I love the creative approach that Paula used for this photo of her dad with a parrot on his shoulder, even stating that it didn't seem like something her Dad would do.
I Don't Even Know Their Name
Now that you've been looking through your pile of vintage photos you probably have quite a few people that you can't identify. Aly Dosdall shares a great solution for using all those "nameless" faces on this layout.
I love how how Aly included every single person that she didn't have a name for and turned it into an opportunity to journal about why it is so important to tell her story! Genius!
I hope I have shown you that it is not only ok, but that you should be including heritage photos that don't have a story. They are part of your past and you and future generations will enjoy looking at all the people, places and things from days gone by.
Tomorrow, I'll be sharing my favorite way to use vintage photos. I'll see you then!
