Family photos: The search for a forgotten past

01 : 07 : 2014 Crowdsourcing : Nostalgia : Photography

New York – Like many people, art director Dave Tomkins loved his grandpa. He loved him so much that when he found a box of old slides taken by his grandfather, Stephen Clarke, he wanted to unravel the mystery of where they were taken so he decided to crowdsource the internet for answers.

Grandpa's Photos Grandpa's Photos
Grandpa's Photos Grandpa's Photos
Grandpa's Photos Grandpa's Photos
Grandpa's Photos Grandpa's Photos

Tomkins created a website, Grandpa's Photos, and asked people to identify where the photos were taken and also to take a picture of the space as it is now. The hope was to show his grandfather to help jog his memory, but sadly he died in 2013 before Tomkins could get the site up and running. 

'The plan was to get thousands of people looking at, and loving, his photos and to do an exhibition getting people to take the same photos today all over the world and present it to him as final proof that he was a great photographer,' Tomkins told Fast Co Design.

The honesty and emotion that comes through Grandpa's Photos is similar to what we have seen in Escapist E-Journals. Read the microtrend to see how multimedia platforms are exploring the far corners of the earth through hazy photography and emotional vignettes. 

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