Photo Album

Unknown, 1995

Paper, cardboard, plastic sheets.

25 x 35 cm

Gifted by my grandfather to my mother to me

Personal collection

In the past, the only way to see the pictures someone had taken was in their physical form - either instant pictures such as polaroids or those that had been developed. Photo albums were an efficient way to keep all photos organized by time and laid out, so you didn’t have to look through them one by one. My dad has endless photo albums; I remember periods throughout my whole life when my brother and I would randomly end up looking through them. It would never be on purpose, but it was still always fun because we would not look at them for a few years then the nostalgia was all new again. Then on some occasions when I would visit my grandparents, they would show me their photo albums so I could see my parents as children and my grandparents younger.

When my grandparents died, the photo albums were passed down to my parents. I can only imagine what my children and grandchildren will think of the albums and their analog format. With advancing technologies, photo albums have become unnecessary because all photos are saved on computers or phones. As such significant technical advances was achieved in one generation, it is intriguing to think about what may change for generations to come, particularly at a moment we face major scientific challenges which have no apparent resolution. At what rate will they emerge?

Abby Greene