Collecting (13) – Diapositives

I was recently in New York and I finally managed to visit the famous Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market. There, I found this slide holder full of photos that seem to belong to a single family. These kind of images always have a disturbing effect on me, especially diapositives, maybe because their format keeps the mistery for a longer time, at least until we project them on a screen or digitize them. But then, they are still volatile. A photograph needs a real (not a virtual) support. The role of diapositives in the history of vernacular photography can give us some hints on the possible effects of the massification of digital photography and digital storage. Just think about this: which photos of your family have endured (in your memory), those from the albums, printed on paper, or those in reversal film? What is more amusing, to browse through a family album, or to watch the slide projection of your friend’s 1978 holydays in Rome?