© 2019 The Anonymous Project
By chance, in the autumn of 2016, award-winning film director, Lee Shulman bought a box of vintage slides from the United States on a “nostalgic whim.” Although he had always nursed an amateur interest in slide photography, Shulman was “blown away” upon discovering the incredible quality and intimacy of these Kodachrome slides. “It was like discovering unique little windows into our past,” says the collector. Struck by the outstanding character and condition of the slides, he brought in his friend and publisher Emmanuelle Harkin, and The Anonymous Project—one of the most important collections of amateur slides in the world, now collected in a photo book by Taschen— was born. For Shulman, the aim was to “save this lost collective memory”.
In the era of Photoshop, airbrushing and Instagram filters, amateur film photographs flicker with a charming candidness, the antithesis of what we’re used to seeing today. “No cropping, no manipulation, no printing or postproduction,” says Shulman. “What you see is what you get —unadulterated perfection at its best.” But while the images may be more truthful than their glossy, stylised present-day counterparts, for Shulman, slide photography was an early example of social media by inviting friends and family over to watch images projected onto a screen.”I often find exactly the same type of images that we see on Instagram, so in this respect not much has changed,” he explains. “We even have examples of selfies where people used time-release shutters to capture a moment.”
© 2019 The Anonymous Project
Curating a selection of 300 images from a collection of 175,000 was no simple task. Shulman says he was led by “personal choice” and an intuitive feeling. “I prefer images that capture an intimate family moment, ones to which I feel an emotional connection to,” he muses. “For me the magic of amateur photography is the relationship between the photographer and the subject… these images are often charged with an emotional bond that we don’t always find in professional photography.” And although this type of photography belongs to a specific middle-class society, the images show that “family was and still remains the defining feature of human existence.” Certain social and political barriers may have shifted, but “we still continue to share the same goals and aspirations for ourselves and our loved ones.”
While the people and places depicted in these pictures may be unknown, they are surprising in their familiarity—beach holidays and Sunday drives, haircuts and hangouts, family get-togethers, lovers embracing. Overall, they suggest the essential human desire to archive and document fleeting moments of joy and happiness. “I hope that people will look past the vintage nature of the images and reflect on their personal and emotional content,” says Shulman. “By preserving this important part of our shared experience, we learn about each other and our differences, and, more important and to a much greater degree, we learn about our shared humanity.”
See more below:
Midcentury Memories: The Anonymous Project by Lee Shulman (hardcover, 280 pages, €40) is out now from Taschen.
Images: © 2019 The Anonymous Project