Why do we love old photos?

Almost every household has a shoebox of old photos stashed away under the bed or in the attic, and we really, really love these old snaps.

The obvious answer to my initial question is that we have such fond personal memories attached to them. Whilst that is almost certainly true, in creating Clixta we realised that there was so much more to it than just this ‘personal’ element. As more and more images were uploaded and made public, it became apparent that even the most mundane of family snaps can hold a deep fascination for anyone, related or not.

Take the photo above…

Already one of my favourite photographs on Clixta and at first glance a pretty straightforward holiday snap, but I’m not so sure. Where are they? Just look at that background, very industrial, Woollen Mills maybe? Probably not the first choice for your jollies, so this would suggest that they are all together as a family. When is it? Going by dress I would say early 1900s, but then I’m no expert. Did they own a camera? Highly unlikely.

What really grabs me the most (and I think this probably goes some way to answering my title question) is the idea of a moment frozen in time. Whatever the back story, we get to witness a precise moment in the lives of these people. Who knows what happened next, what kind of lives the boys went on to have. Are they even boys? The one in the hat could be a girl I suppose.

You get the idea, the more we examine the picture, the more fascinating it becomes and this is just one snap from literally billions of images lying under beds around the globe.

Hopefully, Clixta can help save these old photos and the memories attached to them before it’s too late. Sadly, in the case of our pony & trap I fear we might be too late for the memories, still have a fantastic old photo though.